PUBLIC MARKS with tags israel & settlements

DAAR [Decolonizing Architecture/Art Residency] DAAR is an art and architecture collective and a residency programme based in Beit Sahour, Palestine. DAAR’s work combines discourse, spatial intervention, education, collective learning, public meetings and legal challenges. DAAR’s practice is centred on one of the most difficult dilemmas of political practice: how to act both propositionally and critically within an environment in which the political force field is so dramatically distorted. It proposes the subversion, reuse, profanation and recycling of the existing infrastructure of a colonial occupation. DAAR projects have been shown showed in various biennales and museums, among them Venice Biennale, the Bozar in Brussels, NGBK in Berlin, the Istanbul Biennial, The Architecture Biennale Rotterdam, Home Works in Beirut, Architekturforum Tirol in Innsbruk, the Tate in London, the Oslo Triennial, the Centre Pompidou in Paris and many other places. DAAR’s members have taught lectured and published internationally. In 2010 DAAR was awarded the Price Claus Prize for Architecture, received Art initiative Grant, and shortlisted for the Chrnikov Prize.

An Israeli settlement is a Jewish civilian community built on land that was captured by Israel from Jordan, Egypt, and Syria during the 1967 Six-Day War and is considered occupied territory by the international community.[1] Such settlements currently exist in the West Bank. Israeli neighborhoods in East Jerusalem and communities in the Golan Heights, areas which have been annexed by Israel, are considered settlements by the international community, which does not recognize Israel's annexations of these territories.[2] Settlements also existed in the Sinai and Gaza Strip until Israel evacuated the Sinai settlements following the 1979 Israel-Egypt peace agreement and unilaterally disengaged from the Gaza Strip in 2005.

Monitoring Israeli Colonizing activities in the Palestinian West Bank and Gaza is a joint project between the Applied Research Institute in Jerusalem (ARIJ) and the Land Research Center (LRC). The project, funded by the European Union, aims at inspecting and scrutinizing Israeli colonizing activities in their different forms in the Palestinian West Bank and Gaza, and to disseminate the related information to policy makers in the European countries and to the general public. Specifically, the project will be providing accurate updates on the expansion of existing Israeli colonies, associated by-pass roads and land confiscation. It will also provide detailed baseline data related to specific sites where new Israeli colonizing activities are planned or initiated. Methods used to collect data and monitor the colonizing activities will include remote sensing satellite images, field work, aerial photographs, colonies' masterplans, and topographic maps.

This repor t examines the humanitarian impact on Palestinians from the ongoing construction of settlements in the West Bank and other Israeli infrastructure, such as the Barrier and the roads that accompany them. The analysis shows that almost 40% of the West Bank is now taken up by Israeli infrastructure. It also demonstrates how roads linking settlements to Israel, in conjunction with an extensive system of checkpoints and roadblocks, have fragmented Palestinian communities from each other. The deterioration of socio-economic conditions in the West Bank has been detailed in regular OCHA and World Bank repor ts over the last several years. These have underlined the fact that freedom of movement for Palestinians is crucial to improving humanitarian conditions and reviving socio-economic life.

How Israel has expanded its presence in the West Bank since 1967

"Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, are illegal and an obstacle to peace and to economic and social development [... and] have been established in breach of international law."

The OCHA office in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt) was established in late 2000. The office was established in response to the deteriorating humanitarian situation in the West Bank and Gaza caused by military incursions and closures - mobility restrictions imposed on the Palestinian civilians, local and international service providers. OCHA-oPt aims to improve the humanitarian situation by enhancing coordination between agencies to ensure effective distribution of humanitarian assistance. It also enhances coordination and decision making through its dissemination of humanitarian information and analysis of facts.

This chapter examines the variety and extent of Israel’s physical control over land and resources in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. 1 It details the establishment and expansion of Israeli settlements and other infrastructure, including closed militar y areas, nature reser ves and the West Bank Barrier

Really, it was no surprise when the Israeli planning committee approved Plan 13261, Mordot Gilo at Gilo settlement southwest side of Bethlehem area. The targeted land designated for the new 1100 housing unit construction belongs to Palestinian residents from Beit Jala and was illegally annexed by Israel to the unilaterally declared Jerusalem boundary after the 1967 occupation. The approved plan 13261 comes as part of a more comprehensive construction package that includes Plan 13157 Mordot Gilo West - at Gilo settlement northwest side, which includes an additional 900 housing units and was approved earlier in July of this year. The extent of expansion designated for Gilo settlement remains ambiguous as it may involve some 1000 units more.

The "Spiegel settlement database" is already creating waves in Israel. Israeli NGO Yesh Din has announced they will use the database to help Palestinians sue Israel for reparations and the removal of settlements from privately owned land.

Ha'aretz has busted open a huge story today: "Secret Israeli database reveals full extent of illegal settlement." The story outlines a database created by the Israeli defense establishment to gather: