(Jerusalem) - The Israeli government should grant legal status to a 60-year-old village with a population of about 600 Palestinian-Israeli citizens, Human Rights Watch said today. Authorities have refused to recognize the village as residential, even as they approved an immediately adjacent residential development for Jewish Israelis. The authorities have given no justification for the difference in treatment.
Dahmash, approximately 20 kilometers from Tel Aviv between the cities of Ramle and Lod in central Israel, has been inhabited since at least 1951, and its residents are Israeli citizens. The authorities refuse to rezone the land as residential - although they have done so in neighboring areas - and refuse to provide basic services such as paved roads, sewage, health facilities, kindergartens, and schools, despite numerous petitions by residents. Instead, the authorities consider almost every one of the 70 houses "illegal," and 13 are under threat of demolition. A court is to decide the issue on October 11, 2010.
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