OCHA: “Palestinians Prevented From Building On 44% Of West Bank Lands”

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the occupied Palestinian Territories (OCHA) reported that Israel is preventing the Palestinians from building on 44% of West Bank lands as it allocated these areas to settlements and the military.

The OCHA added that Israel is imposing restrictions on the Palestinians preventing them from building and accessing their lands located in areas “C”.

This issue, OCHA said, is making it difficult for the Palestinians to develop their infrastructure, including the construction of schools and medical centers.

Dozens of thousands of Palestinians are not granted construction permits from the Israeli authorities, an issue that forces them to build without permits.

The OCHA said that Israel demolished 180 constructions this year in areas classified as C. It further called on Israel to stop the demolishing of Palestinian homes and to issue the needed construction permits in Palestinian areas under Israeli control.

The office demanded Israel to halt all of its settlement activities in the West Bank and in East Jerusalem.

It said that since 1967, consecutive Israeli governments have also implemented a range of restrictions on the Palestinians, preventing them from fully using their lands, including preventing them from constructing any buildings or structures.

Nearly 60% of the West Bank is classified by Israel as area C which was set in the Oslo peace deals of the 1990’s.

But an interim agreement signed between Israel and the Palestinian Authority in 1995 states that Israel must gradually transfer power and responsibility in area C to the Palestinian Authority. Area C is under the control of the so-called Civil Administration which is controlled by the military.

'As a result, though the arrangements set up in the Interim Agreement were intended to last no longer than 1999, ten years later, any Area C construction, whether a private home, an animal shelter or a donor-funded infrastructure project, still requires the approval of the Israeli Civil Administration Office, which is under the authority of the Israeli Army,' OCHA concluded.