94 Israeli Land Grab and Forced Population Transfer of Palestinians Building permits For obtaining a building permit you need to bring ownership documents, and since all our lands are located in Area C, we had to ask the Israeli Civil Administration for the documents, which means that you have to pay around 150 NIS ($40) for each document. It is really expensive and in addition we had to submit an aerial land map and a master plan. Building permit applications are based on the English Mandate law, RJ/5, according to which it allows building of 150 square meters, plus 30 square meters for a building intended to house the sheep. We fulfilled and presented all requests, but our applications were refused for inauthentic reasons. For instance, they stated that the sheep’s building is too close to residencies and this is not healthy at all. On this basis they refused many of our applications. They are concerned for our health, but the fact that we live without any water, which they deny us, is not an important matter them. We applied for building permits more than once, but they always rejected our applications and so we stopped. Today we are having a court case in the Supreme Court and we are struggling in various ways with the assistance of expert organizations and the popular struggle. We organize demonstrations on the ground using social media campaigns, etc. to halt our displacement. We hope that the Court won't enable our displacement although we know that for us Palestinians the Israeli Supreme Court is a court of Injustice. Home demolitions The majority of demolitions in Area C of the West Bank fall within three somewhat overlapping categories of legal and rhetorical justification: security, administrative and deterrence, which correlate, in effect, to the practice of military, discriminatory and punitive demolition.327 Regulation 119 of the Defense (Emergency) Regulations empowers the Israeli military to destroy or seal private homes or destroy other private property without 327 The destruction of houses, land and other properties falls into three categories: clearing land of homes the Israeli Military claims are destroyed for ‘military or security needs’, discriminatory demolition of Palestinian property justified ‘administratively’ for having been built without a permit, and destroying or sealing structures as punishment including the destruction of the family homes of Palestinians suspected of carrying out attacks justified with ‘deterrence’. 27 percent of home demolitions from 1967 to 2012 can not be classified into one of these categories are undefined as a result of the authorities’ non-categorization of demolition in the early years of the Occupation. “ See: ICAHD, ‘Demolishing Homes, Demolishing Peace: Political and Normative Analysis of Israel’s Displacement Policy in the Occupied Palestinian Territory’ (April 2012); available from http://www.icahd.org/sites/default/files/ Demolishing%20Homes%20Demolishing%20Peace_1.pdf.