[News] Palestinian Family Living in a Cave Face Eviction by Israeli Authorities

[Anti-Imperialist News]

https://www.palestinechronicle.com/palestinian-family-living-in-a-cave-face-eviction-by-israeli-authorities/
Palestinian
Family Living in a Cave Face Eviction by Israeli Authorities
August 11, 2020
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Ahmed Amarneh and his family live in a cave home after they were refused
permission to build a house. (Photo: via Twitter)

Israeli authorities have threatened to demolish the West Bank cave that a
Palestinian family have sought sanctuary in after they were refused
permission to build a house, according to the news agency AFP.

Ahmed Amarneh’s home may be the first built inside a cave that Israeli
occupation authorities have threatened to destroy.

Amarneh, a 30-year-old civil engineer, lives with his family in the
northern West Bank village of Farasin, where Israel insists it must approve
any new residential construction and tears down homes built without permits.

“I tried twice to build [a house], but the occupation authorities told me
it was forbidden to build in the area,” Amarneh told AFP.

The Oslo peace accords of the 1990s gave the Palestinians self-rule in some
parts of the West Bank.

However, some 60 percent of the West Bank, dubbed Area C, remains under
full Israeli civil and military control. Farasin is located in this area.

The United Nations considers Area C as an occupied Palestinian Territory.

But Israel has increasingly allocated land there for the construction of
settlements which are illegal under international law.

Convinced he would never get Israeli approval to build a home in his
village, Amarneh set his sights on a cave in the foothills overlooking
Farasin.

Amarneh said he figured that as an ancient, natural formation, Israel could
not possibly argue that the cave was illegally built, while the Palestinian
Authority (PA) agreed to register the land in his name. He sealed the
entrance to the cave with a stone wall and installed a wooden door at its
center.

Amarneh told AFP he had been living there for a year and a half, but
received a demolition notice from the Israeli occupation authorities in
July, along with 20 other Palestinian families in Farasin.

The Israeli military branch responsible for civilian affairs in the West
Bank, COGAT, told AFP demolition notices were served to some Farasin
residences because of “structures that were illegally built, without the
necessary permits and approvals”.

Those demolitions began on Monday, with Israeli troops destroying one home
in Farasin and a water tank, a AFP photographer said.

Amarneh, whose home was not targeted on Monday, had told AFP he was
“surprised” to learn that he had built anything illegally.

“I didn’t make the cave. It has existed since antiquity,” he said, holding
his young daughter in his arms. “I don’t understand how they can prevent me
from living in a cave. Animals live in caves and are not thrown out. So,
let them treat me like an animal and let me live in the cave.”

*(Al-Araby Al-Jadeed, PC, Social Media)*
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