Without justice or mercy – the heartbreaking story of Nafuz Da’adoa and her seven children

March 2023
We received a phone call from Nafuz Da’adoa, via members of Friends of MachsomWatch. She
asked us to visit their house which had received a demolition order, due to lack of a building
permit.
The Dadua family is helped by the St. Yves Society lawyers. The family’s financial situation is
very difficult. The house is next to the road leading to the northern entrance to Efrat, and is the
poorest in a row of houses with several floors that have not been threatened with demolition.
The house consists of two rooms with a kitchenette between them and a tiny toilet. In one room
live the 7 children – ages 5 to 16, and in the other room a father with cancer who spends most of
the time in treatment (he was in treatment when we visited) and one brave woman who asked us
to come.

It’s simply heartbreaking to see all the mattresses covering the floor in the living room, which is
used for sleeping by all the children, the poverty prevailing in the house, the cute smiles of
everyone and the terrible fear that they will be left without a place to live.
Outside the house are the initial walls of an extension, which could have allowed for living in
reasonable conditions. But the permit request was rejected outright owing to a 2021 military
“construction approval” order, which states that “the military commander of the area has to
approve the permit request as an initial condition of submission to the Civil Administration”.
The military commander rejected the request in June 2022 (probably because of intentions to
clear the access area to the Efrat settlement as much as possible).
And so the permit request did not even reach the Civil Administration. The current
demolition order encompasses the entire house, not just the extension request whose
building had ceased.

We wrote an email to those friends of MachsomWatch, so that they would connect Nafuz with
the English AMOS Trust that helped in a previous case. Finally a representative of theirs
appeared and was shocked by the family’s situation, by the poverty and the impossible living
conditions. He immediately raised money for renovations and immediately began renovating
the kitchen and bathrooms within the boundaries of the old building.

June 2023
About a year after the rejection of the building permit application, a new notice arrived about
the expected demolition within 14 days. The reason: the military commander of the area
again rejected the permit request due to the proximity to the road leading to Efrat (even
though the attached plan shows that the traffic circle and the planned expansion of access
to Efrat is not adjacent to the area of the house).
The family urgently raised NIS 2000 and submitted a petition by St. Ive to the High Court for
compassionate reasons: father is hospitalized with cancer, 7 children, even so the house only
has 2 rooms and between them a kitchen and a small toilet. And of course they threaten to
destroy it all.
We came to meet with an AMOS representative and with the family.The amazing Nafuz
manages everything herself. We met a local activist that has connections with Amos Trust, a
very impressive man who initiated and supervised the renovations and the care of the family.
We saw the beginning of the interior renovations that will improve the lives of the family
members.

August 2023
We visited the family while they were waiting for the High Court’s reply. We were happy to see
that the renovations, made by the volunteers of the English AMOS organization, greatly
improved the living conditions of this poor family. They installed a modern toilet and shower
and created a beautiful living room, a bedroom for boys and a bedroom for girls, all within the
framework of the old building – We all vowed to remain in close contact and assist, and fight
together against the draconian decision (of the military commander of the region to destroy the
life of a family that has nowhere to go.

November 2023 – as great the hope, so great is the disappointment

Contact with Nafooz was maintained through WhatsApp, and at the beginning of the war,
Nafooz expressed concern about her situation. But on 11/20 she sent a frantic message about the
rejection of the petition by the High Court and asked for our advice. With no legal recourse, we
also decided to contact the AMOS organization and the Ecumenical organization which took
care of the family. There is no doubt that the times are unbearably difficult, houses for
demolition are being hunted for and targeted all over the West Bank. There are 3 months to
exert pressure to postpone/cancel the demolition for better times, perhaps ones in which Otzma
Yehudit (Jewish Power party) representatives will not control the offices of the Civil
Administration, the Ministry of Defense and the National Security and will not act with such
fervor to violate the human rights of the Palestinians in the West Bank.

Attached is the High Court’s decision on the petition translated to English