West Bank village challenges Israel's iron grip on planning - Daily Mail
Like more than half of the homes in Ad Deirat-Rifaiyya -- a village of 1,800 residents on a windswept hillside in the southern West Bank -- the house was built on land owned by the villagers but without Israel's approval. It is a scenario that plays out hundreds of times a year across most of the West Bank, where Israel has made it all-but-impossible for Palestinians to obtain building permits. The question of Israel's iron grip on all planning matters in what is known as "Area C" -- which covers more than 60 percent of the occupied West Bank -- is now being debated by the Israeli Supreme Court. In a landmark appeal, Ad-Deirat village, Israeli NGO Rabbis for Human Rights and three other organisations are demanding the state end its discriminatory housing policies and return local planning rights to Palestinians. Giving Palestinians control over their own planning would curb the need for illegal building, thereby halting house demolitions, say the petitioners, who have made their case before the Supreme Court and are now waiting for a final ruling. Source: www.dailymail.co.uk
