Same tactic, new pretext: Israel uses 'archaeology' to justify demolishing Palestinian homes

On 9 December 2024, around 50 Palestinian families in Nablus, in the north of the occupied West Bank, found themselves threatened with homelessness after receiving demolition orders from the Israeli authorities, giving them just 14 days to file objections.

For context, Israel has practiced home demolitions against Palestinians in the West Bank since 1967, when Israel illegally occupied the territory. By and large, the demolitions are classified as administrative, punitive, or part of "military operations."

In administrative cases, which form a large proportion of Israeli home demolitions, the Israeli authorities order demolitions for homes situated in "Area C," citing the fact that Israel was granted full control of planning and building matters in Area C of the West Bank under the 1993 Oslo Accords.

As stated in a World Bank study, Area C makes up approximately 61 percent of the West Bank, and the usual justification for demolitions is that homeowners constructed their homes without a license. 

Now, Israel is using a different pretext – claiming that these homes are built on archaeological land where construction is prohibited, in the village of Kafr Qalil and the Al-Dahiya Al-Ulya neighborhood in Nablus.

Hamdi Abu Al-Hayyat, the homeowner of one of the threatened houses, said to Al-Araby Al-Jadeed, The New Arab's Arabic-language sister edition, that the decision had hit the community "like a thunderbolt."

"You're talking about removing an entire residential community and displacing hundreds under flimsy pretexts," he added. "Sometimes because they're in Area C, where Palestinians are banned from building or developing land without permits from the occupying authorities – which are practically impossible to get – and other times because they were built on land the occupation classifies as archaeological."

Hamdi explains that staff from the Israeli Antiquities Authority (IAA) had accompanied the Israeli soldiers who distributed the demolition orders and warned that if the demolitions were not prevented, homes across the entire area would be at risk.

But this wasn't all. The Israeli orders also demanded that the homeowners destroy their own buildings, and if they didn't, the Israeli forces would carry out the demolitions once the given period for filing objections had expired. In this case, they would be fined to cover the cost of the demolition – mirroring Israeli policy in occupied East Jerusalem.

Jassem Mansour, whose home is also threatened, said his house was licensed in 2007 by the relevant authorities, but now Israel has claimed that it was built on archaeological land.

In his opinion, this confirms that the entire area is earmarked for seizure and looting in the interests of Israeli settlement expansion – especially since the illegal Har Bracha settlement is located on the slopes of Mount Gerizim, where the threatened homes are also situated.

He stresses that the local community is fiercely attached to their land and won't back down in the face of attempts to uproot them from it.

Walaa Kusa, the owner of a home threatened with demolition, said, "Every day we look at the clock as though we are waiting for the moment the bulldozers arrive."

"I can't leave the house. I'm scared I'll return to find it demolished over the heads of my children. Even when we sleep, we can't think of anything but what will happen. How can they ask us to demolish our homes with our own hands?"

She says the newly built home was a dream for her and her family, and she was waiting until she had paid off her debts to celebrate it with them, "but now I don't know if I'll see it standing tomorrow or not."

Regarding Israel's claim of buried archaeological remains under the houses, Walaa questions: "Where are these artefacts? We built here decades ago. We found nothing when we dug the foundations. There are no Roman terraces or Pharaonic palaces like they claim. These are just pretexts to remove us from our land to benefit the nearby settlements."

She says the goal is to expel them gradually in order to take full control of Mount Gerizim, which overlooks the Har Bracha settlement.

Nablus governor Ghassan Daghlas says four other demolitions have already been carried out by Israel within the city, which is part of a plan to reduce the Palestinian presence on Palestinian land.

He highlights that these demolition orders came just days after Israel's extremist Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich announced the confiscation of around 24,000 dunams of Palestinian land for settlement expansion in the West Bank.

He added that Israel was applying the policy it had long used in occupied Jerusalem, which involved imposing hefty fines on homeowners to cover the costs of demolition if they didn't destroy their own homes.

Ghassan points out that meetings are being held to discuss possible legal avenues to counter the demolition orders and develop an action plan in collaboration with the relevant authorities, to provide legal support and assistance to the threatened homeowners.

Concerning Israel's claim that the houses "violate archaeological sites," Ghassan slams this as "an excuse that no longer fools anyone – but is simply being used to justify uprooting Palestinians from their roots, time and again."

He adds, "We are the land's rightful owners and are the people most anxious to preserve archaeological sites that prove our rights and existence [here] for thousands of years. So would we really violate them?

"Furthermore, it's [Israel] that violates archaeological sites on a daily basis, like in Sebastia and others, destroying and bombing them, as it did with the Omari Mosque in Gaza. Therefore, these lies don't convince any of us."

Earlier this year, the Israeli Knesset advanced a bill that would grant the Israeli Antiquities Authority (IAA) powers to operate in the illegally occupied West Bank, effectively placing all archaeological sites in Palestinian territory under the control of Israel's Civil Administration.

For decades, the historic city of Nablus has long been known as a major commercial and cultural centre in Palestine, and most of the city lies in Area A, where the Palestinian Authority (PA) has control over civil and security matters.

Currently, at least 700,000 Israelis reside in illegal, fortified, Jewish-only settlements across the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, the majority of which were built either entirely or partially on stolen private Palestinian land.

This is an edited translation from our Arabic edition. To read the original article click here.

Translated by Rose Chacko   

This article is taken from our Arabic sister publication, Al-Araby Al Jadeed and mirrors the source's original editorial guidelines and reporting policies. Any requests for correction or comment will be forwarded to the original authors and editors

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