Some chutzpah, huh? Kick people out of their homes and then sell them to someone else!
http://www.imemc.org/article/60898
In a press conference held in Jerusalem on Monday, Adalah, The Legal Center for the Arab Minority in Israel, announced that the Israeli government is selling Palestinian refugee property to the private sector.
One of the houses that belongs to Palestinian refugees annoucned for sale (Photo www.adalah.org
Israel controlled the property of the Palestinians that became refugees when Israeli was created in 1948 in a law that was called the Absentees law. The Custodian for Absentees' Property transferred these properties to the Israel Lands Administration; these properties are classified as absentees' property under the Absentees' Property Law - 1950.
Recently, the Israel Lands Administration has been publishing tenders for the sale of "absentee" properties held by the Development Authorities of municipalities such as Nazareth, Haifa, Led (Lod), Akka (Acre), Rosh Pina and Beit She'an in Israel. Attorney Hassan Jabareen, director of Adalah told IMEMC.
Jabareen added that in 2007, the Israel Lands Administration issued 96 tenders; in 2008, 106 tenders; and to date in 2009, 80 tenders.
The Absentees' Property Law was the main legal instrument used by Israel to take possession of the land belonging to the internal and external Palestinian refugees. Under this law, any property belonging to absentees was taken and passed to the Custodian of Absentee Property for guardianship of the properties until a political solution for the refugees was reached.
This law provides a very broad definition of who is an "absentee"; it encompasses Palestinians who fled or who were expelled to neighboring countries during and after the War of 1948.
During the War of 1948, as many as 800,000 Palestinians were expelled or forced to flee outside the borders of the new state of Israel.
Adalah sent a letter to the Attorney General, Menachem Mazuz; the Director-General of the Israel Lands Administration, Yaron Bibi; the General Director of Amidar (a state-owned and state-run housing company), Yaakov Brosh; and Ronen Baruch, the Custodian of Absentees' Property in May 2009 demanding the cancellation of tenders issued by the Lands Administration for the sale of Palestinian refugee property in Israel.
Jabareen said that selling these absentee properties to private individuals is illegal under Israeli law. It contradicts the essence of the law which provides that the Custodian of Absentee Properties is the temporary guardian of these properties, until the status of the Palestinian refugees is resolved.
In relation to international law, Jabareen argued that the sale of Palestinian refugee properties contradicts international humanitarian law which stipulates the need to respect the right of private property and explicitly prohibits the final expropriation of private property following the termination of warfare.
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