Local Sakhnin Palestinian resident, Ali Zbeidat, received court orders for the eventual demolition of his home from the magistrate court in Akko. (Misgav Regional Council prosecuting.) He was fined 15,000 shekels or 70 days imprisonment, and was given demolition orders of his home to occur in 2 months if the proper zoning is not secured. The zoning has been sought after for the past 7 years, but denied each time Mr. Zbeidat applied for it. Please forward this message onto any groups or individuals who would be interested in expressing their solidarity through letters of support and possible assistance.
The report from Ali Zbeidat follows:
Misgav regional council idea of co-existence and good neighborliness
On October 13, 2004 I stood before Judge M. Alter at the magistrate court in Akko. The petition brought against me had been introduced by the local planning and building committee of the Misgav Regional Council, which accused me of failing to comply with an earlier decision of the court that ordered me to destroy my house in Sakhnin unless I received a permit from the Misgav Committee.
In October 2004, the judge found me guilty without examining the core issues: why had I not destroyed my house, and why had I failed to get a permit from the committee? He ruled that I had failed to implement the court order and that was grounds enough to convict me.
The punishments were:
1. To pay a fine of 7,500 shekel or face 35 days detention. I could pay the sum in 30 payments of 250 shekel each month.
2. To sign a financial guarantee of 15,000 shekels to ensure I wouldn’t break the Planning and Building Law for the next three years, starting from July 1, 2006, or face 70 days detention.
3. A three month stay of judgment for the next three years, starting from July 1, 2006.
In spite of this unjust sentence, I had to accept it, and
began paying the fine regularly, hoping that the problem would even eventually resolve itself, especially since the municipality of Sakhnin and Misgav Regional Council are currently trying to resolve a long-standing land dispute between them with the help of a border committee appointed by the Interior Ministry.
But it seems that Misgav regional council and its planning committee
had different ideas. They thought my punishment was too lenient and one which would “encourage law breakers.” So they appealed to the district court in Haifa.
The hearing for the appeal was on February 17, 2005 in front of
Judges M. Na’aman, R. Jarjorah and R. Shapira. To be honest, I was confident that morning that the district court would reject the appeal and maintain the old sentence.
However, I was wrong. All three judges agreed that the fine should
be doubled to 15,000 shekels or I should face 70 days of imprisonment. Yet even worse they decided that the start of the financial guarantee and the stay of judgement should be reduced from one and a half years (1/7/2006) to three months.
To help you understand how unfair this and the previous decisions were, let me bring to your attention some facts which the judges refused to consider:
1. I built a small house for my family on my own land which I inherited from my father and which is registered in the tabu (land deeds). The land is located inside Sakhnin town and surrounded by legal houses from three sides. The nearest house is six meters from my house.
2. Arbitrarily, with consultation, this piece of land was annexed to the administrative jurisdiction of the Misgav Council, and this is the source of all my problems. The Misgav Council decided that this area should stay a “green zone” to separate Sakhnin from the Misgav settlements.
3. In order to avoid breaking the Planning Law, I requested officially, through the municipality of Sakhnin, a permit in 1995 to allow me to build a legal house, just as any other citizen has the right to do. Nevertheless, Misgav rejected my request, claiming that they suffered from lack of lands and would not return one centimeter of land back to Sakhnin. In fact, they said, they wanted to expand their zone of jurisdiction further.
4. Other requests brought before Misgav Planning Committee in 1996 and 1997 were also rejected.
5. In 1998 I took matters into my own hands. Fifty years after the Nakba, when 93% of Palestinian land had been confiscated by the state of Israel and not one new village for Arab citizens built, I put a mobile home on my own land and started to live in it with my family.
6. After a few days, the Misgav Planning Committee issued its first administrative order to destroy the mobile home. When I refused, they went to the courts to get a judicial demolition order.
7. After a year living in the mobile home, which was barely fit for human habitation, we decided to build a house on the same spot. Again, Misgav immediately issued an administrative order for demolition followed by a judicial demolition order. At one point they threatened to destroy the house within 72 hours. Many people from Sakhnin and from outside Sakhnin hurried to defend the house.
8. Under increasing popular pressure, even from people who live in the Misgav settlements, the Misgav Planning Committee agreed to grant in principle a permit for the house, and asked me to provide the necessary maps and documents. But this just added a new phase of delay and bureaucracy. At the same time they sued me for not complying with the court order.
9. Last year the Interior Ministry appointed a border committee to resolve a long-standing land dispute between Sakhnin and Misgav. The Municipality of Sakhnin has asked that its jurisdiction zone be widened by 8,500 dunums, while Misgav has agreed to hand over only 350 dunums (about 85 acres for a population of 25,000 people) as a border correction. The negotiations are not yet finished. Some people in Sakhnin are optimistic about the results.
From my personal experience, I am not one of them. Even so, I hope that I’m wrong and that Sakhnin will get back some of the land which was confiscated from it in the past.
While Misgav Regional Council talks about good neighborliness and co-existence, in reality it is becoming obstinate and arrogant. Misgav says sweet words about co-existence but its deeds are the exact opposite.
Therefore we call on all people and organizations that care about human rights to join us in expressing our rejection of the policy of house destruction, and the strangling of the Arab towns and villages.
Further back ground information can be found in the following links regarding the Zbeidat-Kosterman’s current situation:
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