The municipality of Lydd has developed more than a hundred housing plans for the Jewish-Israeli citizens, but none for the Palestinian residents. A study by the Israeli rights group Shatil shows that 70% of Palestinians homes in Lydd were built without permits, therefore hundreds of them face demolition orders.71 However, the urban landscape in Lydd has been shaped through the years not solely by ’top-down’ planning policies but also by ’bottom-up‘ initiatives of massive ’informal‘ construction of housing and services by the Palestinian community in the city, to which they were forced. In some areas, large separation walls have been erected to create a symbolic and territorial partition between the Palestinian and Jewish-Israeli residents.72 Testimony of M.N. from Lydd I am a Palestinian citizen of Israel married and a mother to three children. I was born in the city of Lydd. My parents are both internally displaced persons from Lydd. During the Nakba, my father fled to Jordan and my mother to the West Bank. Although they managed to return, they couldn’t have their homes and lands back. In 1998, my husband and I thought to build our dream home on our private land, although we knew that our land was designated as agricultural land, but still we relied on the successful story of the neighboring residential project Ganei Aviv, which was built in the mid 1990s on 140 dunums (0.14 km2) classified as agricultural land, to absorb Russian Jewish immigrants. The neighborhood was completely built without building permissions, but was retrospectively legalized. As our plot of land is designated the same as the one on which Ganei Aviv was built, and it is just adjacent to it, we were encouraged to build the house, and to legalize it through the same procedures. Later we understood that we were really naive to think that Israel will treat us Palestinians equally and fairly in the same way they treat the Jewish-Israelis. Sadly, as soon as we finished building our home, the municipality of Lydd gave us a demolition order because we did not have a building permit. So we applied immediately for a building permit which was refused because the home was built on agricultural land, so we immediately applied for rezoning of our land as in the Ganei Aviv case, but sadly we did not receive the same equal treatment, our request was rejected, and in that same year the municipality demolished our house. In that period we kept living with the feeling of instability and insecurity, for me and my husband building a home did not only mean rising up four walls and covering it with a roof. For us, home means a dream coming true after many sacrifices. It is a life project, a safe shelter for our family. Sadly, Israel demolished our home and with it all our securities and certainties. 71 UK Task Force, UK Task Force Study Trip February 10 – 14 2013. 72 Ibrahim and Rock, Behind the Wall -Separation Walls between Arabs and Jews in Mixed Cities and Neighborhoods in Israel. 24