96 Israeli Land Grab and Forced Population Transfer of Palestinians trial or formal charges. It was enacted by the British Mandate authorities and incorporated into Israeli law in 1948 and then applied to the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip in 1967. Many demolitions are based on Section 119 (1) of the Emergency Defense Regulations, which states: [A]ny house, structure, or land from which he has reason to suspect that any firearm has been illegally discharged,…, or of any house, structure or land situated in any area, town, village, quarter or street the inhabitants or some of the inhabitants of which he is satisfied have committed, or attempted to commit, or abetted the commission of, or been accessories after the fact to the commission of, any offence against these Regulations involving violence or intimidation or any Military Court offence; and when any house, structure or land is forfeited as aforesaid, the Military Commander may destroy the house or the structure or anything in or on the house, the structure or the land...328 Attempts at challenging demolitions based on Defense (Emergency) Regulation 119 tend to rely on the argument that the Regulation is illegal because it was repealed in entirety by the British Mandatory Government before it left Palestine.329 Until the onset of the Second Intifada (September 2000), the sole ground for demolitions was the Defense (Emergency) Regulations 119, but later Israeli authorities distanced themselves from explicitly invoking this legal argument.330 Instead, there is ambiguity on the matter in light of an alternative – that demolitions are “based on clear military considerations.”331 A demolition order is delivered with a pathway of appeal to the Israeli Supreme Court. However, especially common since the start of the Second Intifada, the Israeli military has performed evictions and demolitions without an order thereby evading the appeal process.332 328 Defence (Emergency) Regulations 1945, 1945; available from http://nolegalfrontiers.org/militaryorders/mil029ed2.html?lang=en. Section 119, Para 1. 329 Mahmud ‘Ali Nasser Et Al. V. Commander of IDF Forces (HCJ 2005); Al-Haq, ‘Israel’s Punitive House Demolition Policy’ (2003); available from http://www.stanford.edu/group/scai/images/darcy.pdf. 330 A rather direct denial has been made: ‘[T]he IDF does not base its decisions to demolish houses on Regulation 119, or on mere speculations that the owner of the property may perpetrate a terrorist attack’. ‘IDF Spokesperson’s response to the House Demolition Report’, appended to B’Tselem, ‘Through No Fault of Their Own: Punitive House Demolitions During the al-Aqsa Intifada’ (November 2004), 54; available from http://www.btselem.org/download/200411_punitive_house_demolitions_ eng.pdf; accessed 2 May 2013; See also: Mahmud ‘Ali Nasser et Al. V. Commander of IDF Forces The respondent repealed his intention to use Regulation 119 in general. 331 B’Tselem, ‘Through No Fault of Their Own: Punitive House Demolitions During the al-Aqsa Intifada’ (November 2004), 54; available from http://www.btselem.org/download/200411_punitive_house_ demolitions_eng.pdf. 332 See: B’Tselem, ‘Punitive House Demolitions from the Perspective of International Law’ (May 2010); available from http://www.btselem.org/printpdf/51491; accessed 2 May 2013.