Israel’s September-October holiday season was exploited for a long list of construction violations committed by PA Arabs, primarily the construction of the illegal neighborhood near the train station in Jerusalem – this despite the High Court of Justice ruling that prohibited the continuation of work in the area, Regavim reported on Monday.
According to Regavim, the phenomenon of “Intermediary Days of Construction” is common in the Arab sector, which takes advantage of the fact that building inspectors leave are on vacation during the three-week of Jewish festivals.
In the village of Beit Iksa, located between the Jerusalem neighborhood of Ramot and the community of Mevasseret Zion, near the entrance to Jerusalem via Highway 1, Arabs used the intermediate days of the Sukkot holiday to pump up illegal construction only a hundred meters from the new railway tunnel and the nearby railway bridge – making a mockery of a High Court of Justice order forbidding continued work on the site – an order that followed a Regavim petition.
Near Deir Dibwan, an Arab town four miles east of Ramallah, near the settlement of Ofra, Arab lawbreakers took over patches of state-owned land during the holiday, using heavy machinery to break through and prepare the area for construction.
In another case, also during the intermediate days of Sukkot, Arabs began to prepare land for illegal construction, on state land within the jurisdiction of Kiryat Arba, Hebron.
Coordinator of Judea and Samaria in the Regavim movement Yishai Hamo, says he received many more reports on Arab construction violations over the holiday season, via the Harigon (deviation) application at the Regavim website. Hamo notes that these examples are only the tip of the iceberg of a systematic phenomenon that occurs during the Jewish holidays, which also became the holiday of construction offenders in the Arab sector throughout the country, with an emphasis on Judea and Samaria.
According to Regavim, most illegal construction starts in the Arab sector on either side of the green-line take place throughout the year on Fridays and Saturdays, when no inspection patrols are being conducted. However, the Civil Administration inspectors are all on leave for a week or more during the Tishrei holidays and Passover, resulting in no supervision or enforcement across Judea and Samaria and the predictable epidemic of Arab lawbreaking.