2025Get email notification for articles from Or Kashti FollowJan 18 2025Rabbi Aharon Saltzman is trying to make up his mind about whether to move to his new home or continue to rent lives in the settlement of Modi'in Ilit and is a member of the Karlin-Stolin Hasidic community In the past he wrote a children's column for the ultra-Orthodox website Kikar Hashabbat He's now the owner of an apartment at 4 Bab a-Nahar Street in Jisr al-Zarqa in the Arab town that has acquired the dubious distinction of being ranked as Israel's poorest community Palestinian Towns Squeezed While Jewish Towns Grow (Jisr al-Zarqa) – The Israeli government’s policy of boxing in Palestinian communities extends beyond the West Bank and Gaza to Palestinian towns and villages inside Israel The policy discriminates against Palestinian citizens of Israel and in favor of Jewish citizens sharply restricting Palestinians’ access to land for housing to accommodate natural population growth Decades of land confiscations and discriminatory planning policies have confined many Palestinian citizens to densely populated towns and villages that have little room to expand the Israeli government nurtures the growth and expansion of neighboring predominantly Jewish communities many built on the ruins of Palestinian villages destroyed in 1948 Many small Jewish towns also have admissions committees that effectively bar Palestinians from living there “Israeli policy on both sides of the Green Line restricts Palestinians to dense population centers while maximizing the land available for Jewish communities,” said Eric Goldstein acting Middle East executive director at Human Rights Watch “These practices are well-known when it comes to the occupied West Bank but Israeli authorities are also enforcing discriminatory land practices inside Israel.” although some live in “mixed cities” like Haifa and Acre 350 were built on land confiscated from Palestinians created largely to concentrate previously dispersed Bedouin communities national parks and nature reserves or highways which prevent or impede the possibility of their expansion in the future.” in the cases reviewed by Human Rights Watch planning authorities provided sufficient land and zoning permissions to similarly-situated predominantly Jewish communities to facilitate their growth In responding to questions submitted by Human Rights Watch, a senior official in the IPA disputed that Israel hems in Palestinian towns and villages has approved or is currently preparing master plans for 119 of the 132 Palestinian localities in Israel authorities approved 160,000 housing units in these areas between 2012 and 2019 and “legaliz[ed] thousands of existing structures,” she said While these efforts have resulted in some residential development in certain towns with many projects still requiring further approvals to come to fruition – and they have done little to date to change the reality of hemmed-in Palestinian towns and villages To address the housing shortage among Palestinian citizens of Israel and the legacy of land confiscation from Palestinian towns and villages, Israeli authorities should prioritize the growth needs of Palestinian communities in the zoning process, allocate state land to and expand Palestinian towns and eliminate the legal loophole that permits discrimination by admissions committees “Israeli land policies treat towns inside its own borders in starkly unequal terms based on whether its inhabitants are Jewish or Palestinian,” Goldstein said “After decades of confiscating Palestinians’ land Israel confines them to crowded towns while enabling neighboring Jewish towns that exclude them to flourish.”  Israeli law centralizes planning under the central government – historically the Interior Ministry, but that largely shifted to the Finance Ministry in 2015 The 1965 Planning and Building Law creates a three-tiered hierarchy of planning bodies that draw up and carry out master plans at the national the National Board for Planning and Building prepares national master plans expressing a national vision for everything from land use to development and submits it to the government for approval district and local commissions formulate local plans While the planning process is designed to provide opportunity for engagement at the regional and local levels, in practice it marginalizes Palestinian citizens of Israel, whose representation in government planning bodies is far smaller than their proportion of the overall population and whose needs are rarely prioritized the only option for individuals to offer input is by filing objections to particular plans The IPA wrote in a March 18 letter to Human Rights Watch that it disagrees that “Israeli policy restricts and confines Arab towns and villages.” It notes that it has “put a great deal of effort into planning through the entire hierarchy of planning institutions in order to advance and strengthen Arab communities” and has created “tremendous planning momentum in these communities.” The IPA attributes the challenges of planning in these communities including the “many unutilized agricultural enclaves,” primarily to the high percentage of privately owned land estimating that about 20 percent of the population owns 80 percent of the land It further cites “a short supply of land for public use … large-scale unregulated building … challenging topographical conditions” and the prevalence of spread-out single-family dwellings which “precludes solutions for young couples” and leads to “multi-generational construction,” “forcing the authorities to deliver infrastructure over an expansive area.”   The IPA claims its recent planning efforts address these challenges by “legalizing thousands of existing housing units” and allocating “state-owned land that would allow large-scale construction of housing units” and “public spaces needed for these additional housing units.” The result is “masterplans that include new areas for development on an extremely extensive scale and are suited to contain a number of housing units far exceeding the programmatic and demographic needs of the community.” In December 2015, the authorities approved a 5-year, more than 10 billion NIS (US$2.93 billion) “economic development plan for the Arab sector.” Assessing progress in an “interim report” published in 2019, the Israeli group “Bimkom: Planners for Planning Rights” noted an increase in planning activity in Palestinian towns including steps to allow for more housing construction but observed that the housing shortage in Palestinian municipalities would continue without the state allocating them more state land far less than they had historically lived on While largely spared the destruction and displacement that befell the nearby towns of Tantura and Qisarya during Israel’s establishment in 1948 Jisr al-Zarqa nonetheless came under military rule as did virtually all other Palestinian towns and villages inside Israel until 1966 Israeli authorities laid the basis for hemming the town in Planning and zoning policies in the years since have further restricted its residents’ access to land and housing blocks Jisr al-Zarqa from expanding to the north the head of the Jisr al-Zarqa village council told Human Rights Watch that 90 of the dunams of this preserve consists of land privately owned by Jisr al-Zarqa residents Authorities also zoned part of the area for agricultural use One of the people who owns land in the area designated for agricultural use but who serves as a civil servant at the village council told Human Rights Watch that he sees the land “every day through my window – there is only one street that separates my house from this land – and yet I cannot move and live on it.” separating the town from agricultural lands to the east that used to belong to residents Israeli authorities decided to build Highway 2 in the 1960s Israel took over as state land the roughly 1,600 dunams east of the highway much of which the Jisr al-Zarqa village council say its residents own and used to farm on Most of these lands today fall under the jurisdiction of the nearby Jewish moshav or community that maintains cooperative practices Israel has not built entrance or exit ramps off the highway for Jisr al-Zarqa Not having a highway exit adds 15 to 20 minutes to commutes north or south and leaves 2 options to enter Jisr al-Zarqa by car One is an underpass originally used as a water aqueduct that is only slightly wider than a single car and the other is a road between the northern end of the village and the Taninim Stream Nature Reserve many Jisr al-Zarqa residents worked in Caesarea largely as house cleaners or manual laborers the Caesarea Development Corporation built an earthen berm 1.2 kilometers long and between 9 to 12 meters high The berm blocks the view of Jisr al-Zarqa from Caesarea said the berm blocks easy access for residents working in Caesarea and “deflated the morale and hopes” of residents made them feel like the people of Caesarea “don’t consider us human beings” and want to “cover up” their existence To the west lies the Mediterranean. Israeli law largely prevents building within 100 meters of the coast Israeli authorities established two nature reserves is nearly 3 times that of the predominantly Jewish nearby city of Or Akiva (3,288) and more than 30 times Ma’agan Michael (304) a 26-year-old student who lives with her family of 6 in a 95-square-meter house in Jisr al-Zarqa says the town feels so crowded that “your neighbors can see the inside of your house from their window.” Ahmed Juha, owner of Juha’s Guesthouse, the town’s only hostel, said that when he opened it in 2014 he had to seek an exception to an Israeli law that requires a dedicated parking lot, since the nearest one is 500 meters away. The Israeli rights group Bimkom estimated in 2014 that Jisr al-Zarqa would need 730 additional housing units to solve its housing shortage at the time said “there is no quality of life in Jisr al-Zarqa” and that to him “the goal [of such polices] is clear: to suffocate and displace us.” The stark differences with its neighbors grow directly out of discriminatory Israeli policies granted the kibbutz of Ma’agan Michael more than 5,000 dunams of state land told Human Rights Watch that the state zoned less than 10 percent of its land for housing but in several instances over time reclassified land from agricultural to residential to accommodate the kibbutz’s housing needs to help it surmount a housing shortage in recent years the government required it to build some taller buildings as a condition for rezoning more land for housing The kibbutz also manages fish ponds larger than all of Jisr al-Zarqa and has an industrial zone that includes the headquarters of the major plastics company Bracha acknowledged that “historical and political issues,” in particular “keeping land for the Jews,” has left the town “squeezed.” However Bracha also stated that Jisr al-Zarqa has benefitted from “positive discrimination” in recent years – a reference to measures the state has taken to address the squeeze the Israeli authorities approved a plan to expand Highway 2 which includes moving the section abutting Jisr al-Zarqa to the east and creating entry and exit ramps for the town the authorities approved a master plan for Jisr al-Zarqa that would create “new development areas” in the space created by moving the highway east including “higher-density multi-story [residential] building said this plan would provide an extra 240 dunams for Jisr al-Zarqa though noted that it falls short of the 1,200 dunams the municipality requested in this area in 2005 based on a needs assessment it conducted The IPA said it has proposed plans that could create 700 housing units in this area The IPA also said the master plan authorizes construction of 1,500 housing units in the residential core including a section north of the town near the Nahal Taninim Reserve to allow for residential construction and permits some residential building near the coast The IPA has proposed plans for these areas have yet to authorize construction based on them and many steps remain before they could come to fruition the Transportation Ministry claimed that it lacked the 600 million NIS ($174 million) necessary to reroute Highway 2 according to minutes of a governmental meeting with Jisr al-Zarqa residents reviewed by Human Rights Watch Ammash said Jisr al-Zarqa proposed in May 2019 to develop this land even if Highway 2 stayed in place but the authorities denied that request on the grounds that it would affect the territorial contiguity of the town said they expected that when a government is formed following March 2 elections The Palestinian town of Qalansawa, home to 22,800 people in a heavily Palestinian region known as the “Triangle.” Although Qalansawa has roughly 8,400 dunams within its municipal boundaries Israeli land and planning policies have confined the residential zone to the developed city center creating both a density problem and a housing shortage during the period of Israeli military rule over most of the Palestinian population in Israel including through laws allowing it to take control of land it designated as “absentee property.” Israel also began building infrastructure projects on Qalansawa’s territory further limiting the land available for expansion a water pipeline system built in the 1960s the engineer in charge of planning for the municipality at the western edge of the residential area effectively demarcates the edge of the town’s residential core Israeli authorities in the 1990s built an electricity line through the city’s territory The Popular Committee for the Defense of Land and Housing in Qalansawa a grass-roots group that works on land-related issues told Human Rights Watch that Israeli law prohibits building within a 150 meter zone around the line which runs for 3.5 kilometers and reduces the land where residents can build by 500 dunams They said that authorities have issued demolition orders for about 25 homes and 20 commercial structures allegedly built within the 150-meter zone believes that the lines devalue land in the zone by 60 to 70 percent and worries about the safety and health risks for those living there Israeli authorities also prohibit building near the Alexander River including through the center of the residential area The Popular Committee estimates that the prohibition which covers 75 meters on each bank in the agriculture zone further reduces the land where residents can build by 500 dunams Israeli authorities only began formal planning in Qalansawa in the 1970s and until 2017 had not approved a comprehensive plan for the municipality Planning decisions have significantly restricted the land available for residential use Israeli authorities zoned virtually all of north Qalansawa and parts of the east and west – a total of about 4,200 dunams or half the municipality – for agriculture use and prohibited building of residential units there A 31-year-old Qalansawa resident said that her family owns a 400-square-meter property in an area restricted to agricultural use only a few meters from the residential zone She hoped to build their family house there despite years of efforts through the municipality and directly with planning authorities they were unable to change the classification of the land and instead moved to a nearby Palestinian village He lives in his unfinished home with the threat of demolition looming said that 600 to 700 structures – including some homes – in the agricultural zone face demolition orders for being built without a permit Some residents in the residential center also never applied for building permits in many cases because their homes do not comply with Israeli regulations usually because they expanded in a way not allowed under the plan The Popular Committee estimates that about 7,500 Qalansawa residents do not own land in the town and struggle to make ends meet but need to expand to accommodate their family’s needs During the process that led to approving Qalansawa’s first master plan in 2017 and municipal officials say they filed more than 4,000 objections to the plan These objections included requests to rezone much of the agricultural land allocate 1,200 dunams of state land near Qalansawa to the municipality relocate the electricity line outside the municipality and block plans to build 2 roads through Qalansawa’s territory the authorities in 2016 amended Israel’s national plan to approve in principle rezoning 2,800 dunams in the agricultural zone for residential use was not reflected in the master plan for Qalansawa meaning it could take a decade or more before any residential building can start the state did not allocate any state land to Qalansawa and did not relocate state infrastructure projects The IPA says it has approved building 2,400 housing units in Qalansawa over the past 5 years and that the authorities are preparing “a new policy document” that could facilitate additional growth While Israeli authorities have demolished only a small number of homes in Qalansawa – 25 according to the Popular Committee including owners who demolished their own structures in the face of demolition orders – the threat of demolition exacts a heavy cost Tayeh links some of the town’s social ills to youth feeling “there is no hope to build a home an all-Jewish moshav built in the 1950s The community has an admissions committee and faces few of the challenges that confront its neighbor director of the planning and construction committee for the regional council of Lev Hasharon which includes Sha’ar Efraim but not Qalansawa said that the national infrastructure projects have not restricted Sha’ar Efraim’s growth built gates at its entrances and sometimes prevents non-residents from using the road passing through it Most of the moshav’s land is zoned for residential building No homes there currently face demolition orders and prior plans have permitted building on agricultural land Ein Mahel, a town of about 13,000 Palestinian residents with an area of about 5,200 dunams near Nazareth in Israel’s Northern District, is surrounded on all sides by the Jewish-majority city of Nof HaGalil, which until 2019 went by the name Nazareth Illit (Upper Nazareth). Nof HaGalil, with nearly 33,000 dunams of land, has a population of 41,200 people many of whom immigrated from Eastern Europe in the 1980s and 1990s and result in the “transfer of the center of gravity of life from Nazareth to the Jewish neighborhood.” Nof HaGalil, bordering Nazareth, wholly surrounds Ein Mahel and weaves between five other Palestinian towns and villages, impeding the establishment of a larger, contiguous Palestinian municipal area Planning policies restrict residents to building in the roughly 2,000 dunam residential core of the village The first plan for Ein Mahel in 1982 and second plan in 1996 zoned the majority of Ein Mahel’s land for agricultural use said that those who live in the residential core with many young people moving reluctantly outside the village The plans did create some more space for residential construction but much of the land allocated was privately owned will not necessarily create housing for those who do not own land and cannot afford to buy any – who account for 20 to 30 percent of Ein Mahel’s population The allocation of state land may be required to achieve that objective A 53-year-old dentist, Marwan Habiballah, said Israeli authorities confiscated about 11 dunams of his land in 1976 as part of a larger government confiscation of about 20,000 dunams that triggered protests that activists mark annually on March 30 as “Land Day.” He said he filed a lawsuit which resulted in an offer of financial compensation that he refused His family owns 9 to 10 dunams of land in the agricultural zone near the built-up area he says he has no choice but to remain in his home on land he inherited from his grandfather in the residential core that he says is too small for his family of 6 He contemplated moving to Nof HaGalil but said he cannot afford the rent there a 40-year-old physiotherapist with a graduate degree from Tel Aviv University and a father of five for Nazareth Illit in 2010 due to the housing crunch He said he would not have moved if he could have built a home on a roughly four dunam piece of land his family owns in southeastern Ein Mahel but authorities zoned this area for agricultural use He sought to buy a home in Ein Mahel in 2015 contending the property would not net a good return if he defaulted The authorities have also not zoned any of the city’s land for agriculture according to the city’s general manager Hava Bachar has no industrial zones and few dedicated public areas Thousands of Palestinian citizens have moved to Nof HaGalil in recent years, largely purchasing property from Jewish Israelis who were resettled there as immigrants and earned enough to “head for a better life in the center of the country,” according to Nazareth-based journalist Jonathan Cook Bachar attributes the arrival of Palestinians in Nof HaGalil to the fact that “nearby towns do not have space to grow.” She noted that Nof HaGalil gave a piece of its land for a cemetery for Ein Mahel residents but was unwilling to “give away land,” given “our ambition to reach 100,000 citizens.” She suggested instead that Israel should build “a new city for Arab citizens.” IPA says it is in the process of approving a comprehensive plan for Ein Mahel An Ein Mahel official said that the village has requested that the plan rezone agricultural land to permit residential construction and allocate it state land would – if approved – rezone agricultural land including some outside the town’s jurisdiction as a residential area with 12,000 housing units as compared with the 3,000 housing units currently in the village Israel’s Forced Displacement of Palestinians in Gaza Jordanian Deportations and Expulsions of Syrian Refugees Get updates on human rights issues from around the globe Human Rights Watch is a 501(C)(3) nonprofit registered in the US under EIN: 13-2875808 and 80% of the 14,000 inhabitants live below the poverty line While most of the focus on Israel in the international news is related to the intractable Israel-Palestine conflict the situation facing the country's Arab minority though that number is an improvement over recent years who's 52 and has a head of curly gray-black hair has devoted his life to improving the situation of Arabs in Israel a city long heralded as Israel's "model" city of Arab-Jewish coexistence The officer in question has been placed on administrative leave the primary artery connecting Tel Aviv and Haifa Farah pointed at a crowded expanse of gray cinderblock structures overlooking the highway There were exits for the towns before and after and exited to a small two-lane access road that is the only way into the impoverished village A police car was idling at the mouth of the road stopping any car heading toward the highway His eyes were fixed on the officer talking to a man in a newish white sedan honed after years of fighting what he sees as thinly veiled racist attacks on Arab communities We drove through the one-lane tunnel that passes under Highway 2 and forms the entrance to Jisr Netanyahu's hometown and a wealthy enclave of villas and private pools was built more than a decade ago to separate the communities Caesarea residents said they wanted to block the sound of the call to prayer from Jisr's mosques and to prevent thieves Jisr residents see it as another example of official discrimination: a separation wall built so wealthy Caesareans don't have to look at the dilapidated town "The kibbutzim can't give back its agricultural lands Their fathers promised them those lands 3,000 years ago," Farah said with an acidic laugh as he looked out to Ma'agan Michael they vote for Meretz," the social-democratic left-wing party Many families now rely on income from the town's women who pile into shuttles at dawn every morning to take on menial jobs all over the country The majority of Farah's advocacy in Jisr and other Arab communities is about basic services: In 2013 Mossawa successfully lobbied to have Jisr connected by public buses Other recent successes include the building of an early childhood center and a building for the social welfare department But the center and department will be housed in the same location and electricity are other major issues.  Farah showed me how squat houses alternated with unfinished multistory concrete structures and ramshackle houses were built on top of one another The government won't approve permits for new buildings because of the proximity to Caesarea The houses are linked by looping green cables that carry electricity from one legal structure to half a dozen illegal ones we need to be advocating for higher education and not for sewage systems Residents weary of violence applauded the development that the city council had asked unsuccessfully for years for a permanent structure the police station was built on land that the town council had hoped to use for development Farah and the town council were due to show Emanuele Giaufret Mossawa-coordinated project to empower the town to "maximize the economic potential." One of the main plans is to turn the village into a tourist destination and the thought is that it could become a beach town residents led Giaufret and the other attendees on a guided tour flanked by scrub plants and the Taninim Stream pointed out the ruins of a stone bridge and explained that the town derives its name which means "bridge over the blue," from the bridge built to commemorate Kaiser Wilhelm II's visit to Palestine an ancient hill overlooking a wild and untouched Mediterranean beach, one of the women on the tour fainted It was ascertained that she was diabetic and didn't have insulin with her Others tried to shield her from the sun with a scarf Mossawa's social and economic program coordinator "This is the problem: The closest ambulance has to come from Caesarea," she said "Because the highway doesn't connect to Jisr There's little land to add any of those things Ten minutes passed before a lifeguard came from a nearby beach and administered first aid a paramedic showed up to take the woman away the ambassador met the town council in a community center "I know it's not an easy time to be an ambassador to this country," Farah said as he leaned between the lectern and a crutch "Your position is either you support us here or we become refugees in Europe I hope to not become a refugee in Europe." Farah's statement might have sounded like hyperbole after walking through Jisr and seeing the desperate poverty first-hand it was clear to me that fixing the interconnected issues of crime and poor health in Arab society needs to be at the top of Israel's priorities impoverished locale on the Mediterranean shore are asking for change 2010 The tale of Jisr al-Zarqa could open with two scenes The first takes place on the village's main street "street" is probably too fancy a word to describe the asphalt path that has no shoulders or sidewalks young and old (the young in this village number 4,500 according to the education department ) to walk in the middle of the street I've seen a lot of Arab villages in Israel the artist and landscape architect who brought me to Jisr al-Zarqa but I've never seen one that is this densely packed Even the more neglected villages usually have some space between the houses