State to court: Negev Bedouin must fend for themselves under Gaza rockets
By Revital Hovel | Jul. 18, 2014 |
▻http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.605803
The state is not responsible for protecting Bedouin communities from rocket fire, the State Prosecution told the High Court of Justice on Thursday.
In response to an urgent petition demanding that Bedouin villages in the Negev be protected, the state said it is the residents’ responsibility to protect themselves. “While the state is obliged to its residents’ security in general, it has no specific obligation to provide protection to all residents,” the state argued.
The petition was submitted by several forums, including the Association for Human Rights on behalf of the Negev Bedouin, the council of unrecognized Bedouin villages in the Negev, and Physicians for Human Rights. Among the petitioners is the uncle of two Bedouin girls who were wounded when a rocket from Gaza hit their Negev home earlier this week.
The petitioners, representing some 100,000 of the 200,000 Negev Bedouin, accused the government of abandoning them under fire, due to the lack of any protection from rockets.
The Israel Defense Forces said this week that the location of the girls’ home is classified as an “open area.” Small and isolated settlements are given lower priority when deciding on deployments of the Iron Dome, the IDF said.
The state also said the Civil Defense Law stipulates explicitly that the owners or tenants of private houses or structures are responsible for protecting them. The state said it distributes the Home Front’s instructions to the Bedouin population.
The prosecution rejected the claim that this approach constituted discrimination against Bedouin communities, and asked the court to deny the petition without intervening in the issue.
The current situation stems not from discrimination by the state’s authorities, but the Bedouin’s illegal settlement and construction, the state said. “For example, residents of a neighborhood in the center of the country, whose buildings were erected illegally, or not according to the planning and construction laws, would also be inadequately protected,” the state said.
The state also said the rocket fire at the Bedouin villages was negligible. As for the petitioners’ demand to set up cement shelters for protection against rocket attacks in the area, the state said these shelters provide inferior protection compared to underground shelters and protected spaces inside apartment buildings.
“Since the cement shelters cost 45,000-55,000 shekels [$13,200-$16,100] each, the Home Front’s priorities for allocating them are determined as part of an orderly policy and overall considerations … mainly according to the danger level to the various authorities on the confrontation line and considering the existing protection,” the state told the court.
