MORAG (Gaza Strip): Palestinian farmer Mitwalli al-Banna cannot prove he owns land on the outskirts of a former Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip, but he has pitched a tent to claim it nonetheless.
“It was my father’s land, and I was born on it. We had land here for a long time, but it was not registered,” he said.
“When the Jews left, we returned,” the 30-year-old added as he walked along sand dunes near a handful of white tents erected by families who claim ownership of parcels of land in the ex-settlement of Morag. Palestinian flags waved overhead.
The Palestinian Authority plans to develop land left vacant by Israel’s evacuation of all 21 settlements in Gaza as part of its pullout after 38 years of military rule.
In October, the Authority broke ground on a project funded by the United Arab Emirates to build apartment towers for poor or homeless people in the coastal strip, which is among the most densely populated places on earth and home to 1.4 million people.
But the Authority faces a challenge from farmers like Banna with claims to land in former settlement blocs or the no-go zones that surrounded them and who have returned to cultivate that land, sometimes in areas earmarked for development.
The Palestinian Authority has pledged to return land inside former settlements to rightful Palestinian owners, or to offer compensation or alternative plots.
But some officials said landowners had been slow to submit claims, without giving numbers. No claims had been decided.
One official said some Palestinians were “not cooperating” because they did not trust a government often seen as corrupt.
Judges on a land claims tribunal would in principle rely on land registry records and private deeds to determine ownership, and then decide on compensation, officials have said.
The task of deciding ownership is complicated by the fact that a minority of landowners lack papers to prove claims, or failed to register purchases with Egyptian, British or Ottoman authorities who ruled Gaza before Israel captured it in 1967.
Palestinian community leaders said Gaza Strip residents sometimes hid land deals from authorities because they feared those foreign governments would impose heavy taxes.
Palestinian officials say they want to recognise ownership of Palestinians whose families farmed plots for decades.
Some of those families had continued to farm land on the outskirts of settlement blocs until after the start of a Palestinian uprising in 2000, when settlers expanded no-go zones to include outlying Palestinian farmland.
But officials said it was often difficult to tell lawful owners apart from opportunists staking false claims.
Some 5 percent of ex-settlement land is estimated to be privately owned and the rest will be government property. Settlements made up around 18 percent of Gaza.
Police patrol the ex-settlements to deter squatters, but that has not stopped some from pitching tents in outlying areas.
“Some of our people have tried to cultivate government land as if it is their land. This must be returned to the Palestinian Authority,” said Osama al-Farra, mayor of the southern town of Khan Younis. “We think this will be a big problem.”
The Palestinian Authority, already under pressure because of internal unrest, is preoccupied with imposing law and order.
“There are a lot of confrontations on the evacuated lands,” said one official who deals with land issues, asking not to be named. “They are there,” he said of squatters. “No one is capable of removing them. Every day we are in contact with the police and national security. But so far there is no help.”
Since Israel’s withdrawal, unrest has increased in Gaza as rival militant groups, including some within the ruling Fatah party, vie for influence ahead of a January legislative vote.
Hamas militants have clashed with security forces and two foreign journalists were briefly kidnapped. Police say they lack weapons and equipment to tackle the problem.
The Palestinian Authority is also reluctant to return plots inside the settlements if it means cutting chunks out of land it wants to keep intact for development, the land official said.
There is a desperate shortage of good housing in Gaza, where most of the population is made up of Palestinians whose families fled or were forced out of homes in what is now Israel during a war at the Jewish state’s 1948 founding.
Overcrowding has been exacerbated by a high birth rate and Israeli army demolitions that have made thousands homeless during raids. Israel says raids were aimed at fighting arms smuggling or to prevent attacks.—Reuters
