Land Confiscation Introduction 43 of expropriation orders on their land when tractors began work on it.172 However, as noted by B’Tselem, Israel continues to expropriate land largely under Article 12 of the Jordanian law, which allows for ‘urgent’ expropriations and bypassing certain requirements in respect of the land-owner.173 Although Israel rarely uses this means as a way of accumulating land for the construction of colonies, it has done so in the past.174 Additionally, the Israeli Supreme Court has, however, regularly allowed for the expropriation of Palestinian land in order to construct roads that serve the colonies and often bypass Palestinian villages.175 Nasser Nawaj’a - Susya, Hebron 176 The village of Susya, near Hebron, accommodates 45 Palestinian families with a total of 339 residents among which 60 percent are children. Normally, the numbers of residents of a village increase over the years, but unfortunately in our case our number is decreasing. We are still losing pieces of land in the eastern area under the pretext that they are ‘State Lands’, ‘archeological lands’, ‘national parks’ or required for ‘security reasons’. Further difficulties affecting daily life include: the lack of basic infrastructure, violence of colonists including the murder of three residents, prevention of access to our land, and home demolitions that have all led to the decrease in the population. In 1983, the colony of Susya was established beside our village on our land which had been declared ‘State Land’ prior to that. Later on, in 1986, we were forcibly expelled from our original village of "Susya" by the Israeli military and further because of the Civil Administration’s declaration that the area is a "national park" due to the discovery of an ancient synagogue in our village, as they claim. After our expulsion, most of us settled on nearby agricultural lands that we still live on until today, and on which we are facing the threat of expulsion again. Originally, the residents of Susya used to own around 10,000 dunums (10 km2). In the 1980s we lost the first 1,000 dunums on behalf of the colony of "Susya", which was initially a military camp, and subsequently an outpost that became a colony and continued to expand. Afterwards, the military camp and 172 Tabib Et Al. V. Minister of Defence, 36(2) 622 Piskei Din (n.d.). 173 B’Tselem, Land Grab, 60–61. 174 ‘Abd Al-’Aziz Muhammed ’Ayed Et Al. V. Commander of IDF Forces in Judea and Samaria HCJ (n.d.). 175 See: Tabib Et Al. V. Minister of Defence, 36(2) 622:; Jam’ayat Iskan Al-Mu’almun V. Commander of IDF Forces in Judea and Samaria, 37 (4) Piskei Din 785 (n.d.); Municipality of Hebron Et Al. V. Minister of Defence Et Al., 50(2) Piskei Din 617 (n.d.). 176 Nasser Nawaj’a, ‘The Village of Susya - South Hebron Hills’, interview by BADIL, February 2013.