The park was built in part on private lands belonging to the petitioners, the brothers Muhammad and Hamed Alhawaja, and includes some 22 acres of lawns, strolling paths, playground facilities and an amphitheater. Its construction lasted five years, from 2002 to 2007.

The Civil Administration issued cease-work orders and demolition orders for the site in 2006, but ten months later, in May 2007, has yet to enforce them. That month, it announced that "As for further treatment of the work done in the area, if such is necessary, it will be determined according to procedures and priorities.”

On June 29 the HJC held a hearing in the case, and after the hearing the court issued the interlocutory order. 

Download this press release

Official figures collected by Yesh Din, as well as the organization's monitoring of indictments submitted and their results, show that from the beginning of the second intifada until the end of 2009, 1805 criminal investigations were opened by the MPCID on suspicions that soldiers committed offenses against Palestinian civilians and their property. These investigations deal with suspicions of serious criminal offenses of different kinds: Unlawful shooting, some of which caused the killing and injury of civilians, violent assaults on Palestinians, looting and property damage, taking bribes and other offenses.

By the end of 2009, 105 of the aforementioned 1805 investigation files led to indictments being served against suspects. In other words, in only 5.8% of the investigation files did the MPCID investigators manage to find sufficient evidence to serve indictments against one or more defendants. This figure on the rate of failed MPCID investigations is identical to the level of failed investigations we found in the figures published in "Exceptions," which dealt with investigation files opened by the end of 2007.

Download the data sheet (pdf)    Download the report Exceptions (pdf)

On December 26th, the State responded to the High Court of Justice in reaction to a petition filed by the residents of the Palestinian village of Ein Yabrud on whose lands a sewage purification facility was built illegally. In violation of international law, and contradicting the Bar-Ilan speech made by Netanyahu in June in which the Prime Minister pledged that "no lands will be seized to expand existing settlements," the State Attorney's Office notified the High Court of Justice last week that it is examining a possible seizure of private Palestinian lands on which a sewage purification facility was built illegally for the settlement of Ofra.

The petition against the sewage facility was filed by Palestinians from the village of Ein Yabrud with the aid of the Yesh Din human rights organization.  The construction of the facility started in 2007 in Ofra on privately-owned Palestinian lands and covers a total of 37 dunams. According to official publications, the construction of the sewage facility costs some NIS 7.8 million from government budget.  The location was planned and its plans were promoted by the local governments. 

Despite the fact that entire project consisted of illegal construction works that were carried out without permits, and though the state had issued demolition orders against the site, reacting to the HCJ petition, the state referred to the construction of the sewage facility as a final fact and showed no intention to enforce the law and return the land to its rightful owners.  The state's response said that staff work is being conducted to find alternative ways to address the issue.

On Friday, 11 December 2009, Yesh Din founders Paul and Ruthie Kedar were honored with the Emil Grunzweig Human Rights Award. The award was established in 1981 by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) and was renamed in 1983 after peace activist Emil Grunzweig was murdered by a right-wing sympathizer during a Peace Now demonstration against the war in Lebanon. It is granted annually to "an individual or NGO that has made a unique contribution to the advancement of human rights in Israel."

As founders of Yesh Din – Volunteers for Human Rights, Paul and Ruthie Kedar have significantly altered the landscape of human rights activism in Israel. Thanks to their vision, Yesh Din's volunteers and staff have been able to make a difference in the lives of hundreds of Palestinians in the West Bank. Their personal contributions to human rights extend beyond Yesh Din's work, having volunteered for decades in various groups monitoring and protesting human rights violations in the Occupied Territories.

Yesh Din is proud to congratulate Paul and Ruthie Kedar on receiving the 2009 Emil Grunzweig Human Rights Award.

For more than nine years landowners from the village of Silwad near Ramallah have been unable to access and cultivate their land around the illegal settlement of Ofra. On December 16 the landowners, with the help of Yesh Din, petitioned the Israeli High Court to issue an order to remove the obstacles and allow them access to the agricultural land they own. The settlement of Ofra was built on the private land of residents of Silwad and today there is a ring road around the settlement, partly fenced, with assault dogs, surrounding Palestinian land and preventing its owners from accessing it. The farmers' inability to access their land severely hinders their ability to make a living and violates their property rights.

The size of the area to which the petitioners' and land owners' access is denied is estimated at 3100 dunam, which is 25% of the area of the village that is classified as a C area, under Israel's control. Since the end of 2000, access to the land has become impossible - for more than nine years the petitioners and other residents of the village have been unable to enter their land and cultivate it, with more and more land being detracted from the cultivated area over the years, with no interference or intervention by the authorities in the area.

"The expansion of the settlement for construction and access prevention continues, by using illegal means," says the petition submitted by attorneys Michael Sfard, Shlomi Zachary and Avisar Lev – of Yesh Din’s legal counsel. "'Ring roads,' which surround and trap hundreds of dunams of private land, were built around the settlement and its surrounding outposts, and in other places there are other physical obstacles (land banks and/or fences), all on the private land of residents of the villages near the settlements, with the law enforcement agencies doing nothing."

Read a summary of the petition [English]

As olive-picking season ends this year, Yesh Din published an updated data sheet on damage caused to Palestinian trees over the past four years. Yesh Din has been monitoring Police investigation of Palestinian complaints on damage caused to their fruit trees for the past four years, and finds in this data sheet that some 40% of the incidents that the organization has monitored took place over the past 10 months. Most of the damage was inflicted on olive trees, but other types of fruit-bearing trees, such as lemon and almond trees, were also harmed.

Yesh Din monitored the investigation of 69 incidents where Palestinian-owned trees were vandalized in the West Bank that the Samaria and Judea (SJ) District Police have been investigating. Not a single one of the 69 cases under police investigation that Yesh Din monitored has so far yielded an indictment against those suspected of involvement in vandalizing Palestinian-owned trees.  Though the Army reported there was a "quiet olive-picking season," the organization received reports of dozens of incidents in which hundreds of trees were damaged during that time.

Lior Yavne, Yesh Din's Research Director, said that "the law-enforcement authorities are not responding to the ongoing harm done to the livelihood of Palestinian families. When investigating damage to trees, the SJ Police failure rate is 100%."

Download the data sheet [PDF]

The petition is accompanied by aerial photos taken between 1997 and 2009. They show that ever since the fence was built in 2002-2003, lands that were regularly cultivated by the Palestinian farmers have turned into fallow land because access to them was denied. The fence was built illegally - it is not clear who is responsible for construction – but the Civil Administration has done nothing to remove it or guarantee the farmers' access to their lands.

In addition to the plots that were de facto annexed to the settlement after the fence surrounded them, the settlement of Geva-Binyamin also holds some 145 dunams of Jaba Village residents' privately-owned lands. The landowners cannot access these plots as well, and over the years several public buildings were built there even though these plots are formally outside the settlement's jurisdiction.

Download a summary of the petition [English, pdf]

 Video presentation of aerial photos (Dovev Alperson)