Thread by @BtSIsrael

ICYMI: Last week thanks to @HaMokedRights's legal battle, Israel's High Court ruled that the IDF can no longer bar Palestinian farmers who own land in the "seam zone" of the West Bank, from accessing their own land on the basis of the plot being *too small*.

https://twitter.com/JessicaMontell/status/1500807138997948419

The 'Seam Zone' is the (mostly agricultural) land trapped between the Green Line and the Separation Barrier, which in many places is built several hundred meters or even kilometers into the West Bank, meaning that many Palestinians are separated from their land by the Barrier.

In 2017 the IDF's Civil Administration stopped issuing permits to farmers whose plot is less than 330m²—a completely arbitrary figure. AND if a large plot was owned by several people, they divided the plot's size by the number of co-owners. Meaning, many farmers were wrongfully >

denied their permits.
Obviously, the very existence of a permit regime controlled by an occupying force whose entire purpose is to control people's access to their own land - is infuriating in its own right. Several of our testifiers have told us about how this looks in practice:

"It was completely messed up, our whole conduct… I think how I would have felt if I were to go to work and I were to go through a checkpoint, had to wait a long time in line, and if I was a minute late, I wouldn’t get to work."
1st Sgt, 188th Brig, 2016
breakingthesilence.org.il/testimonies/da…

Still, the "tiny plots" victory is an important step towards rectifying the maddening injustice of the Seam Zone—although it remains to be seen if the ruling will be enforced. Meanwhile, kudos to @HaMokedRights for continually holding the Civil Administration to account.