Saturday, March 04, 2023

IT'S NAVY SONAR
Claims about offshore wind farms killing whales are unsubstantiated, scientists say



Ben Adler
·Senior Editor
Sat, March 4, 2023 

The tail of a dead beached whale on Rockaway beach, Queens, New York, Dec. 13, 2022. (Bryan Bedder/Getty Images)


Since December, more than 23 whales have washed up dead along the east coast of the United States, leading wind energy skeptics to lay blame on the pending installation of offshore wind projects. But some scientists with the federal government say that there is no evidence to support those claims.

Last year, the Biden administration sold six leases to produce wind from turbines off the mid-Atlantic coast, part of its effort to fight climate change by boosting production of clean, renewable energy. Some pundits and politicians have concluded that preconstruction activity on new wind turbines has resulted in an increase in the death of whales.


Fox News’ Sean Hannity recently accused wind turbines of “contributing to the deaths of whales and bird life,” and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., claimed dead whales “keep washing up on the beach from wind farms.” The mayors of 12 towns along the Jersey Shore signed a letter calling for a pause in offshore wind development. The environmental group Clean Ocean Action has joined Republican New Jersey Reps. Chris Smith and Jeff Van Drew to demand a suspension of wind development.

A wind turbine generates electricity at the Block Island Wind Farm on July 7, 2022, near Block Island, R.I. (John Moore/Getty Images)

On Tuesday, Fox News reported that Sean Hayes, chief of protected species for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), wrote a memo last May warning that “the development of offshore wind poses risks to [whales] ... at varying stages, including construction and development, and include increased noise, vessel traffic, habitat modifications, water withdrawals.”

Federal agencies that track whale populations and the threats to them have reached a different conclusion, noting that the increase in whale deaths predates offshore wind leasing and is attributable to other causes, such as collisions with ships.

“To date, no whale mortality has been attributed to offshore wind activities,” Lauren Gaches, a spokesperson for NOAA Fisheries, said in a late January media teleconference. On Feb. 21, the U.S. Marine Mammal Commission provided an update, reiterating that “despite several reports in the media, there is no evidence to link these strandings to offshore wind energy development.”

Have whale deaths suddenly spiked after offshore wind leasing?


Wind turbines at the Block Island Wind Farm on July 7, 2022.
 (John Moore/Getty Images)

No. The increase in whale deaths along the U.S. Atlantic coast began more than five years before offshore wind leasing. Since 2016, according to NOAA, humpback, minke and right whales have been experiencing an “unusual mortality event.” In that time, 335 dead whales of those three species have washed up on the east coast. Ten or more humpback whales have been stranded on beaches each year since then, with a high of 34 in 2017.

This winter has been especially notable, with 23 whales found since December, including 16 humpbacks — almost half as many that washed ashore in all of 2017, the peak year for humpback deaths.

Are the planned wind turbines to blame?


That would be quite a feat on their part, since construction has not even begun. Some wind energy opponents have suggested the vibrations of seismic testing being conducted for wind development may play a role. NOAA says this conjecture is unsupported and studies have found no effect on whales from seismic surveying.

“We do not have evidence that would support the connection between the [wind] survey work and these recent stranding events or any stranding events in the last several years,” said Ben Laws, deputy chief of the permits and conservation division of the NOAA Fisheries Office of Protected Resources.

Major environmental groups agree with NOAA’s conclusion. “There’s no evidence that we’ve seen implicating wind turbines and the deaths of whales on the East Coast," Greenpeace oceans director John Hocevar told USA Today.

So what is killing these whales?


Officials examine a dead beached whale on Rockaway beach, Dec. 13, 2022.
 (Bryan Bedder/Getty Images)

Being struck by ships and getting caught in fishing nets seem to be the biggest reasons for the number of recent whale deaths.

NOAA Fisheries says it has performed necropsy examinations on “roughly half” of the 178 humpback whales that have died on the east coast since 2016. “Of the whales examined, about 40% had evidence of human interaction, either ship strike or entanglement,” said Sarah Wilkin, coordinator of Marine Mammal Health and Stranding Response.

All three whales that washed ashore during the third week in February showed signs of having been hit by a boat, according to federal investigators.

“Human-caused mortality and serious injury, particularly entanglements and vessel strikes, is the greatest threat to recovery of North Atlantic Right Whales,” the Marine Mammal Commission has stated.

Why are more whales being hit by ships in recent years?


People look at a dead, 35-foot humpback whale, in Lido Beach, N.Y., Jan. 31.
 (Seth Wenig/AP Photo)

Two reasons stand out: the recovery of whale populations means there are more whales in shipping channels, and increasing global trade means there are more large vessels in U.S. waters. Since the 1986 ban on commercial whaling, the species has made a dramatic comeback from the brink of extinction. The population is especially robust in southern New England, according to Hayes’s memo.

“As the Gulf of Maine stock of humpback whales continues to grow, more young animals are choosing to overwinter along the Atlantic coast where they are vulnerable to being struck by ships and becoming entangled in fishing gear,” the Marine Mammal Commission noted in its update.

Global ship traffic has tripled since 1992. In the last two years, a post-pandemic surge in demand for consumer products has led to increased trans-oceanic commercial shipping. That is especially true in the New York-New Jersey area. In 2017, ports near New York City were opened for the first time to the world’s largest container ships, and traffic has boomed. In 2022, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey moved 27% more cargo than in 2019.

Is there any evidence that offshore wind farms harm whales?


The GE-Alstom Block Island Wind Farm, Sept. 14, 2016. 
(Eric Thayer/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

There have only been very limited studies concerning the effect of offshore wind turbines on aquatic life, but so far they have not found any adverse affects. A pair of 2006 studies of offshore wind turbines in Germany and Denmark found the noise involved in wind energy development — including seismic testing, construction and the spinning of rotor blades — did not harm marine mammals’ auditory organs, although the study was not focused on whales specifically.

The metal bases of the first offshore wind turbines in the United States, off the coast of Virginia, have reportedly served as hospitable “artificial reefs” for schools of fish, algae and sea turtles. And off the coast of Taiwan, windmills are being used to help regenerate coral species.

Environmentalists say more study is needed and that it is still possible wind turbines could harm whales, but no proof has been found.

Do other energy projects kill whales?


Oil on Huntington Beach, Calif., from a 126,000-gallon oil spill from an offshore oil platform, Oct. 3, 2021. (Nick Ut/Getty Images)

Offshore oil spills are documented to have killed many whales through inhalation of the toxic substance or consumption of contaminated fish. According to the conservation group Oceana, “at least 150 dolphins and whales were found dead” after the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico. The Gulf of Mexico Bryde’s whales, among the most endangered whale species in the world, lost 17% of their population.

The 1989 Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska killed roughly one-third of the killer whales in two separate pods and stunted the growth of surviving calves.

What else is killing whales?


A dead whale on Rockaway Beach, Queens, N.Y., Feb. 17. 
(Fatih Aktas/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

Fishing and climate change. The ropes and nets used for commercial fishing operations regularly entangle whales. A 2012 Department of Interior study found that 80% of right whales will be caught in fishing gear at least once in their lifetime. Whales are frequently injured in these situations, and they can be killed, as in the case of a whale that died in Massachusetts after suffering skull-bone fractures while trying to escape.

Another threat is rising water temperatures due to climate change. The average ocean temperature has risen 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit since 1901. Those warmer temperatures are killing the fish populations that North Atlantic whales rely on for food, according to a 2021 study in the journal Oceanography.

“Forced by climate-driven changes in the Gulf Stream, warm slope waters entered the region and created a less favorable foraging environment for the endangered North Atlantic right whale population,” the report noted. “Climate-driven changes in ocean circulation have altered the foraging environment and habitat use of right whales, reducing the population’s calving rate and exposing it to greater mortality risks from ship strikes and fishing gear entanglement.”

At a January press conference, Allison McLeod, policy director for the New Jersey League of Conservation Voters, hammered that point home.

“There is no evidence that any of the recent strandings so far have been tied to offshore wind,” she said. “The number one threat to the marine environment is climate change. Offshore wind is one of the most important tools we have to protect the entirety of our marine ecosystem.”

What about that NOAA memo?


In an email to Yahoo News, Gaches of NOAA said Hayes’s memo was designed to advise the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), which sells offshore wind development leases, on whether to create buffer zones to protect endangered North Atlantic right whales.

“Since then, NOAA Fisheries and BOEM have released a joint draft strategy to protect and promote the recovery of North Atlantic right whales while responsibly developing offshore wind energy,” Gaches said.

How can whales be better protected?


Photo: Getty Images

Last year, NOAA proposed a new rule that would extend speed limits to cover smaller ships and expand the zone in which the speed limits apply along the east coast. (If ships move slower they will cause less harm in collisions, according to the agency.) The agency also issued a report last year with a strategy to switch the fishing industry to ropeless fishing systems that would reduce the risk of entangling whales.

The Natural Resources Defense Council argues seismic testing should be subject to noise limits — the group is unpersuaded that it cannot hurt whales’ and dolphins’ hearing — and that more study for the underwater transmission cables used for offshore energy projects is needed to see if they risk entangling marine mammals.

Some environmental activists say that the stated concerns about whales from conservatives such as Hannity and Greene are insincere and ill-informed.

“It’s just a cynical disinformation campaign,” Hocevar of Greenpeace said. “It doesn’t seem to worry them that it’s not based in any kind of evidence.”

USA Today noted that none of the 12 mayors in New Jersey had ever spoken up about whale deaths previously, even though dead whales have been showing up in increasing numbers on their state’s beaches for the last six years. Two of them, however, have previously spoken out against offshore wind, which they worry will damage the local fishing and tourism industries.

“While the climate deniers and the right-wing pundits are tilting at windmills,” Hocevar said, “most of us are focused on the real threats to whales ­— climate change, entanglement with fishing gear, ship strikes and plastic pollution.”

Press freedom? Egyptian journalists set to stand trial


Reporters from one of Egypt's last remaining independent media outlets are preparing for what activists criticize is a politically motivated trial. The international community should be doing more to help, they say.

Cathrin Schaer
22 hours ago22 hours ago

Three journalists from one of Egypt's last remaining independent media sources will go on trial next Tuesday. Mada Masr is one of Egypt's — if not, of the Middle East's — most prominent independent outlets, known for its investigative reporting.

Rights groups see the trial as yet another attempt by the Egyptian government to silence its critics.

"We don't really know what to expect," Mada Masr editor-in-chief Lina Attalah told DW on Friday. The team members involved are "calm and composed, but obviously concerned," she said. "As journalists, we don't like to be the story ourselves. And even before there's any kind of verdict, no matter how severe, this is taking us away from our work in the newsroom," she added, pointing out that the case was being heard in a courtroom three hours away from Cairo, where Mada Masr is based. "We just want to be able to do our work."

Court case followed complaints

The case began last September after Mada Masr published a story about corruption in a local political party, Nation's Future. The party supports Egypt's current leader, President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, a retired military officer who was involved in a 2013 military coup that saw the country's democratically elected officials removed from power. He became president in 2014.

Published in August, the Mada Masr story alleged that members of the Nation's Future Party were implicated in "gross financial misconduct" in a state corruption case. But after party members and party followers submitted hundreds of complaints, Egyptian prosecutors brought four Mada Masr journalists in for questioning.

Attalah and three of the article's authors — Rana Mamdouh, Sara Seif Eddin and Beesan Kassab — were charged with slander and the defamation of members of the Nation's Future Party. After interrogation, the all-female group was released on bail.

Shortly afterwards, Attalah was also charged with starting a website without a license. This came despite the fact that, as Attalah has pointed out, the outlet had unsuccessfully been trying to obtain a license since 2018 but has never had a response from the relevant authorities. Egyptian law states that regulatory agencies must contact an applicant if their license is rejected.

'Extremely worried' about next week's trial

"El-Sissi's government has spared no efforts to silence [Mada Masr]," Jonathan Dagher, head of the Middle East desk at the media rights organization Reporters Without Borders, or RSF, told DW. "The journalists of Mada Masr should never have been interrogated in the first place, they should never have been arrested, and they should definitely not be facing charges for doing their work of informing the public."

Dagher added that RSF was extremely worried about the outcome of the trial next week. If found guilty, the journalists could be sentenced to up to two years in jail and forced to pay fines of up to 300,000 Egyptian pounds ($9,763 or €9,192).

"It's also important to note that trials against journalists in Egypt don't usually meet [international] standards of justice," Dagher said. "This is why 25 journalists are currently behind bars in Egypt. Though many of them are in pretrial detention, several have been sentenced in politicized trials, and then found guilty of ludicrous charges."

Egypt is currently ranked 168 of the 180 countries in RSF's annual press freedom index. After slipping down the list slowly for the past decade — in 2013, it sat at 158 — the country now has what is almost its worst-ever ranking.

"Virtually all media are under direct control of the state, of the secret services or of a handful of millionaire businessmen with influence in ruling circles," RSF's 2022 case file on Egypt states. "Independent media are censored and targeted by prosecutors. … Outlets who refuse to submit to censorship are blocked, as in the case of independent news site Mada Masr, inaccessible in Egypt since 2017."

Mada Masr has continued to publish stories through other channels and via social media though, and can also be accessed using virtual private network software.
Just one of many such cases

This trial is just the latest of many forms of judicial harassment, said Hossam Baghat, executive director of the human rights organization, the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, or EIPR. The activist and journalist has been prosecuted under some of the same restrictive laws that will be applied at next week's Mada Masr court case. Since 2016, he has been banned from leaving the country. The EIPR is currently facing three criminal prosecutions, he said.


Baghat believes conditions for human rights are worsening in Egypt. The aftermath of events like the United Nations' climate conference, COP27, that was held in Egypt last November, sends "a terrible message to the government," Baghat argued.

During the climate conference, which was held in the Egyptian resort town of Sharm El-Sheikh, there were protests permitted and speeches by visiting European diplomats calling for better human rights and more press freedom in Egypt. During the conference, one of the country's best-known activists, Alaa Abdel-Fattah, who also holds a British passport, went on hunger strike. His family, who came to the conference to protest, had high hopes that with all the international pressure and world headlines, he might be released. He wasn't.

"More could have been done by governments to pressure the Egyptian government into releasing him," said Dagher from Reporters without Borders. "We are disappointed that the international community did not go all the way to secure his liberation."

Egyptian activist Alaa Abdel-Fattah's family, including his sister (center), have been working to get him released
Kin Cheung/AP/picture alliance

According to human rights activist Baghat, the message this sort of situation sends to the Egyptian government "is that if they dig in and refuse to compromise, they won't just get away with it, they may actually be rewarded with more trade deals and more business as usual."

"The situation has actually deteriorated after COP27. More people are being arrested, more websites are being blocked and more judicial harassment is happening," he said.
Europe has a special responsibility, activists say

German government officials attending COP27 spoke out about Egypt's dire human rights record and in December last year, the German foreign office named Mada Masr editor Attalah one of the laureates of the2022 Franco-German Prize for Human Rights.

the Egyptian government has accused Germany of meddling and last month, Luise Amtsberg, the German government's commissioner for human rights policy and humanitarian aid, was told she would not be given a visa for a planned visit to Egypt.

In 2021, Germany authorized €9 billion ($9.5 billion) worth of arms exports to Egypt, the highest amount ever approved in one year
 Joerg Waterstraat/picture alliance

"And Germany is just taking all this," Baghat complained. Germany is Egypt's second-biggest trading partner in Europe, with trade volumes worth around €5 billion ($5.3 billion) and growing, and there are a wide variety of links between the two countries, including in loans and large, albeit controversial, German arms sales.

"There is a lot more the German government could do in order to challenge the human rights violations in Egypt," Baghat said. And giving awards to people like soon-to-be-trialed editor Attalah, "gives Germany even more responsibility to speak out against these violations," he concluded.

When the court case starts, Attalah is hoping for more support, both locally and internationally. "I just wish that anybody who has the privilege to do so, and some leverage, will speak up against a trial that endangers freedom of the press," she said.

DW reached out to Egyptian government media contacts in Berlin but had received no reply by the time of publication.

Edited by: Maren Sass
CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M
Before fatal collapse, Turkish building had skirted code thanks to Erdogan policy






Sat, March 4, 2023 at 1:02 AM MST·11 min read
By David Gauthier-Villars and Natalie Thomas

MALATYA, Turkey (Reuters) - The Trend Garden Residence, an upscale serviced apartment building in the Turkish city of Malatya, boasted a gym, freshly-furnished rooms and a roof-top cafeteria.

But when a powerful earthquake jolted the city in the early hours of Feb. 6, the seven-floored building disintegrated, killing 29 people, according to two government officials. It was as if the structure had “liquefied,” one survivor said.

Beneath its colourful facade, the building had been extensively remodelled a few years ago without the necessary permits, but was later registered thanks to a 2018 zoning amnesty promulgated by Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, according to a Reuters review of municipal and amnesty documents, architects drawings and interviews with six people familiar with the Trend Garden’s history.

Erdogan at the time said the amnesty, which was first granted to building owners ahead of his 2018 re-election, was aimed at resolving conflicts between citizens and the state over millions of buildings “constructed in violation of urban planning.”

Now, the wrecked Trend Garden is the subject of a criminal investigation to determine responsibility for its collapse. Local prosecutors have arrested at least three people connected to the building on preliminary charges of causing death by negligence, according to the two government officials who asked not to be named. The officials said the investigation would consider all aspects of the building’s life.

As focus in Turkey intensifies on how poor construction may have contributed to the devastation caused by the earthquake, the deadliest natural disaster in the country’s modern history, authorities have pledged to identify culprits. More than 230 people have been arrested, including building contractors and developers, the government said.

The earthquake has left more than 50,000 people dead in Turkey and Syria, and aftershocks continue to rock the region. The Trend Garden was one of the more than 200,000 buildings that Turkish authorities say collapsed or are in urgent need of demolition in the regions shredded by the earthquake. A further earthquake on Monday caused more buildings in Malatya to collapse.

The Turkish presidency’s communications directorate and the urbanisation ministry didn’t respond to requests for comment, including on the amnesty and whether the policy contributed to the devastation triggered by the earthquake. Erdogan, who has led Turkey since 2003, said following the disaster that building standards have improved under his watch.

Among those arrested as part of the Trend Garden probe is Engin Aslan, according to the government officials. Corporate records show he is the majority owner of a Turkish company that, according to land registration documents, owns the building. Contacted by Reuters via an employee of the apartment building’s management prior to being arrested, Aslan said he wouldn’t speak to the news agency because he was mourning the loss of his brother who was killed in the Trend Garden's collapse.

A lawyer for Aslan, Muhammet Karadogan, declined to comment.

Architects and civil engineers said it was too early to determine whether the building’s remodelling, which involved dividing 12 apartments into 42 smaller units and transforming the attic into a full-fledged seventh floor, contributed to the collapse.

But they said the amnesty law raises fundamental problems because it has fostered a reckless culture in the construction business in a country that sits on major fault lines and faces well-identified earthquake risks.

Under the amnesty, owners could legalise unregistered buildings by filing an electronic application and paying a tax. Detailed guidance issued by the urbanisation ministry, which oversaw the process, makes no mention of a requirement for independent assessment. However, the law stipulates that the owner is responsible for ensuring the building is earthquake resistant.

“That law is nonsensical,” said Erol Erdal, a member of the Malatya branch of Turkey’s Chamber of Civil Engineers. “The government and the laws are meant to protect people, not put them in harm’s way.”

Malatya Mayor Selahattin Gurkan declined to comment on the Trend Garden’s collapse, citing the ongoing probe, but told Reuters that authorities needed to learn lessons from the earthquake. Asked if regularising illegal buildings might have caused safety hazards, the mayor - a member of Erdogan’s ruling AK Party (AKP) - said “the zoning amnesty wasn’t the correct approach.”

FAMILY TRAGEDY


Among those killed in the Trend Garden’s collapse were four members of Fatma Zehra Gorgulu’s family - her three children and one of her sisters.

Sitting by a fire near the wrecked building amid freezing temperature for a sixth day after the earthquake, Gorgulu remained silent and appeared transfixed, as rescue teams combed the rubble and she waited for news.

Feyza Yilmaz, a third sister, had come to Malatya to help her sibling following the disaster. Yilmaz explained the family had rented a room at the Trend Garden because it was close to a hospital where one of Gorgulu’s children needed to undergo treatment for a rare condition and she also had scheduled surgery. When the earthquake struck, Gorgulu was at the hospital while her daughter and two sons were being looked after by the other sister at the residence.

Yilmaz, a 32-year old lawyer, said she wanted to understand how a modern, sturdy-looking building could crumble like a house of cards.

“I want to know who is responsible for this,” she said.

The following day, the four bodies were recovered, according to rescuers.

‘PROBLEMATIC BUILDINGS’

The Trend Garden building – and the 2018 zoning amnesty law – are emblematic of what some architects and civil engineers say is Turkey’s failure to impose stringent antiseismic regulations under Erdogan, as the country’s population of 85 million continued shifting to urban centres.

Ahead of 2018 presidential elections and municipal ones in 2019, Erdogan hailed the zoning amnesty as “a gesture of compassion” towards Turkish citizens confronted with a finicky administration. Addressing an AKP rally in Malatya in March 2019, the president told supporters that thanks to the policy “the problems of 88,507 Malatya citizens have been resolved,” according to a video of his speech.

Turkish authorities extended the amnesty several times. The move has generated billions of dollars for state coffers, according to the government. More than 3 million households and companies obtained their deeds as a result, the government said in October last year.

That same month, an Erdogan ally, the Great Unity Party’s leader Mustafa Destici, proposed reviving the measure ahead of this year’s presidential elections in order to help others. Destici didn’t respond to a request for comment relayed via a spokesperson on whether he continued to support the proposal.

In 2019, after a building in Istanbul that had benefited from the zoning amnesty collapsed, causing 21 deaths, the government vowed to accelerate a plan to demolish and replace Turkey’s most dangerous buildings. At the time, the government said about a third of the country’s 20 million properties raised safety concerns and required action.

But Turkish authorities neglected the issue, according to Eyup Muhcu, head of Turkey’s Chamber of Architects. Instead, the government focused on construction in new areas, “abandoning problematic buildings to their fate,” he said.

The urbanisation ministry also didn’t respond to questions about how it dealt with problematic buildings and how many of the recently collapsed buildings had benefited from the amnesty.

DEVELOPMENT PACT


The Trend Garden’s building was constructed more than two decades ago, in the late 1990s, following a typical Turkish real-estate pact where one party contributes the land and another takes charge of construction, while the two divvy up the units.

Bahattin Dogan, a building contractor from Malatya who is in his 70s, told Reuters that he did the construction. Bulent Yeroglu said his family brought the land. A 59-year-old civil engineer, Yeroglu said he also took responsibility for designing the building’s structure with steel reinforced concrete for the frame, and bricks for the infills.

Both men said they had followed all applicable rules and took no shortcuts. Reuters wasn’t able to independently corroborate that.

Architects drawings of the original structure and building permits dated 1996 and later seen by Reuters, as well as a satellite image from 2010, show the building had initially consisted of a ground floor with commercial space, and 12 apartments on six stories above plus an attic.

Presented with the drawings, one forensic engineering specialist, Eduardo Fierro of California-based BFP Engineers, said the building appeared to have “a reasonably well-engineered frame.” Fierro said, however, that it had a so-called “soft story” or inherent weakness on the ground level, with a higher ceiling and fewer walls or partitions to accommodate the commercial area. He, and several other specialists consulted by Reuters, agreed that determining whether remodelling played a role in the building’s collapse wasn’t possible without more information. Reuters had no evidence that the remodelling was a factor in the catastrophe.

Yeroglu said he got the commercial area and that he had split it into two spaces over a decade ago, selling them to two pharmacists. Both pharmacists told Reuters they acquired the commercial space after it was divided and didn’t make any changes to the building.

Building contractor Dogan, who got the 12 apartments, said he sold them in mid 2018 to Aslan, one of the individuals the government officials said had been arrested.

Reuters couldn’t determine if Aslan or someone else took responsibility for the remodelling into 42 units because the building’s ownership kept evolving around the time it happened.

A municipal official said the remodelling was done without applying for permission, which he and other local buildings specialists said should have been sought for such a transformation. “There is no trace of an application,” the official said after consulting building records in Malatya’s Yesilyurt district.

If an application had been made, the official added, it would likely have been rejected because the municipality is generally opposed to allowing remodelling of older buildings that have “tired” structures.

A spokesperson for the Yesilyurt district municipality, where Trend Garden was located, declined to comment about the building’s registration history.

What is clear is that the urbanisation ministry issued amnesty decisions in December 2019 “on the basis of information provided by the applicant” for 42 apartments at the address of the Trend Garden, according to 42 amnesty documents seen by Reuters.

Land registry documents reviewed by Reuters show that a Malatya-based company called Trend Yurt used the amnesty decisions to obtain the building’s deed in November 2020.

Aslan has been Trend Yurt’s majority owner and manager since March 2020, according to corporate records.

The two government officials said those arrested also included Sefa Gulfirat, who founded Trend Yurt in 2018, corporate records show, and Yeroglu, the civil engineer who designed the building’s structure.

Speaking to Reuters before his arrest, Yeroglu said he believed the building collapsed because its structure was damaged during the remodelling.

A lawyer who represented him when he was arrested, Ozgur Akkas, said Yeroglu would contest that he caused death by negligence on the grounds that his responsibility as a civil engineer had elapsed. Contacted by Reuters, one of Yeroglu’s relatives rejected the notion that the building had an inherent weakness, saying the civil engineer had designed the structure carefully, including the commercial area.

Aslan’s lawyer Karadogan is also representing Gulfirat. The lawyer also declined to comment on Gulfirat’s behalf.

Following further refurbishment, the attic became a seventh floor with a cafeteria and the serviced apartments opened in late 2021, according to Anil Ozhan, whose family owns a pharmacy in one of the commercial spaces on the ground floor, and other locals. A photo posted online by the Trend Garden Residence in late 2021 shows the building following these refurbishments, including blue and ochre trims, emblazoned with the company’s name and a full-height, glass-fronted seventh floor.

Ozhan said he was aware the building had benefited from the zoning amnesty but the pharmacist believed the remodelling had been thoroughly assessed before the amnesty was granted. “I’d be mad if I heard it wasn’t,” he said.

‘I THOUGHT I WAS DEAD’

At 4.17am on Feb. 6, the snow-covered ground around the Trend Garden began shaking violently, according to footage captured by closed circuit television.

Onur Gencler, a manager at a construction company, was sleeping on the sixth floor. When he understood what was happening, he pulled two beds close together and laid between them wrapped in comforters after grabbing his cellphone.

The building shook for a long minute, he said, and then collapsed in a matter of seconds, plunging him in darkness.

“I thought I was dead,” Gencler said. “It’s only when I turned on my phone and saw the picture of my wife and son, that I understood I was alive.”

About 90 minutes later, his boss Mehmet Kaya and colleagues who had rushed to the site pulled Gencler from under a slab of concrete with minor injuries.

After six hours of searching under heavy snow fall, Kaya said they found his 34-year-old cousin Fatma, who was also staying at the serviced apartment building.

She was dead.

(Reporting by David Gauthier-Villars and Natalie Thomas; Editing by Cassell Bryan-Low)
WINDFALL TAX 99%
Oil’s $128 Billion Handout as Doubts Grow About Fossil Fuels



Kevin Crowley, David Wethe and Mitchell Ferman
Sat, March 4, 2023 

(Bloomberg) -- Worldwide oil demand is racing toward an all-time high and some of the smartest minds in the industry are forecasting $100-a-barrel crude in a matter of months, but US producers are playing the short game and looking to turn over as much cash as possible to investors.

Shareholders in US oil companies reaped a $128 billion windfall in 2022 thanks to a combination of global supply disruptions such as Russia’s war in Ukraine and intensifying Wall Street pressure to prioritize returns over finding untapped crude reserves. Oil executives who in years past were rewarded for investing in gigantic, long-term energy projects are now under the gun to funnel cash to investors who are increasingly convinced that the sunset of the fossil-fuel era is nigh.

For the first time in at least a decade, US drillers last year spent more on share buybacks and dividends than on capital projects, according to Bloomberg calculations. The $128 billion in combined payouts across 26 companies also is the most since at least 2012, and they happened in a year when US President Joe Biden unsuccessfully appealed to the industry to lift production and relieve surging fuel prices. For Big Oil, rejecting the direct requests of the US government may never have been more profitable.

At the heart of the divergence is growing concern among investors that demand for fossil fuels will peak as soon as 2030, obviating the need for mutlibillion-dollar megaprojects that take decades to yield full returns. In other words, oil refineries and natural-gas fired power plants — along with the wells that feed them — risk becoming so-called stranded assets if and when they are displaced by electric cars and battery farms.



“The investment community is skeptical of what assets and energy prices will be,” John Arnold, the billionaire philanthropist and former commodities trader, said during a Bloomberg News interview in Houston. “They would rather have the money through buybacks and dividends to invest in other places. The companies have to respond to what the investment community is telling them to do otherwise they're not going to be in charge very long.”

The upsurge in oil buybacks is helping drive a broader US corporate spending spree that saw share-repurchase announcements more than triple during the first month of 2023 to $132 billion, the highest ever to begin a year. Chevron Corp. alone accounted for more than half that total with a $75 billion, open-ended pledge. The White House lashed out and said that money would be better spent on expanding energy supplies. A 1% US tax on buybacks takes effect later this year.

Global investment in new oil and gas supplies already is expected to fall short of the minimum needed to keep up with demand by $140 billion this year, according to Evercore ISI. Meanwhile, crude supplies are seen growing at such an anemic pace that the margin between consumption and output will narrow to just 350,000 barrels a day next year from 630,000 in 2023, according to the US Energy Information Administration.

“The companies have to respond to what the investment community is telling them to do otherwise they're not going to be in charge very long.” — Billionaire John Arnold

Management teams from the biggest US oil companies recommitted to the investor-returns mantra as they unveiled fourth-quarter results in recent week and the 36% slump in domestic oil prices since mid-summer has only reinforced those convictions. Executives across the board now insist that funding dividends and buybacks takes priority over pumping additional crude to quell consumer discontent over higher pump prices. This may pose a problem in a matter of months as Chinese demand accelerates and global fuel consumption hits an all-time high.

“Five years ago, you would have seen very significant year-on-year oil-supply growth, but you’re not seeing that today,” Arnold said. “It’s one of the bull stories for oil — that the supply growth that had come out of the US has now stopped.”

The US is crucial to global crude supply not just because it’s the world’s biggest oil producer. Its shale resources can be tapped much more quickly than traditional reservoirs, meaning that the sector is uniquely placed to respond to price spikes. But with buybacks and dividends swallowing up more and more cash flow, shale is no longer the global oil system’s ace in the hole.



















In the waning weeks of 2022, shale specialists reinvested just 35% of their cash flow in drilling and other endeavors aimed at boosting supplies, down from more than 100% in the 2011-2017 period, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. A similar trend is evident among the majors, with Exxon Mobil Corp. and Chevron aggressively ramping buybacks while restraining capital spending to less than pre-Covid levels.

Investors are driving this behavior, as evidenced by clear messages sent to domestic producers in the past two weeks. EOG Resources Inc., ConocoPhillips and Devon Energy Corp. dropped after announcing higher-than-expected 2023 budgets while Diamondback Energy Inc., Permian Resources Corp. and Civitas Resources Inc. all rose as they kept spending in check.

On top of shareholder demands for cash, oil explorers also are grappling with higher costs, lower well productivity and shrinking portfolios of top-notch drilling locations. Chevron and Pioneer Natural Resources Co. are two high-profile producers reorganizing drilling plans after weaker-than-expected well results. Labor costs also are rising, according to Janette Marx, CEO of Airswift, one of the world’s biggest oil recruiters.

US oil production is expected to grow just 5% this year to 12.5 million barrels a day, according to the Energy Information Administration. Next year, the expansion is expected to slow to just 1.3%, the agency says. While the US is adding more supply than most of the rest of the world, it’s a marked contrast to the heady days of shale in the previous decade when the US was adding more than 1 million barrels of daily output each year, competing with OPEC and influencing global prices.

Demand, rather than supply-side actors like the American shale sector or OPEC, will be the primary driver of prices this year, Dan Yergin, Pulitzer Price-winning oil historian and vice chairman of S&P Global, said during an inteview.

“Oil prices will be determined by, metaphorically speaking, Jerome Powell and Xi Jinping,” Yergin said, referring to the Federal Reserve’s rate-hike path and China’s post-pandemic recovery. S&P Global expects global oil demand to reach an all-time high of 102 million barrels per day.

With the case for higher oil prices building, US President Joe Biden has fewer tools at his disposal with which to counteract the blow to consumers. The president already has tapped the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to the tune of 180 million barrels in a bid to ease gasoline prices as they were spiking in 2022. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm is likely to get a frosty reception at the CERAWeek by S&P Global event in Houston staring March 6 if she follows Biden’s lead and attacks the industry for giving too much back to investors. That business model is “here to stay,” said Dan Pickering, chief investment officer of Pickering Energy Partners.

“There’s going to be a point at which the US needs to produce more because the market is going to demand it,” Pickering said. “That’s probably when investor sentiment shifts to growth. Until then, returning capital seems like the best idea.”

--With assistance from Lu Wang and Tom Contiliano.



Laws Preventing Boycotts of Israel Are Sweeping the U.S. This New Documentary Chronicles the Fight

Sanya Mansoor
Fri, March 3, 2023 


Julia Bacha and cinematographer Amber Fares interviewing ACLU lawyers outside the courtroom in Austin, Texas 
Credit - Courtesy Just Vision

Palestinian American Bahia Amawi, a pediatric speech pathologist, lost her job with Austin, TX public schools after refusing to pledge that she would not boycott Israel. Mik Jordahl, a lawyer for Arizona’s prison system, lost his, too, after refusing to sign a contract that he would not boycott the country. And Arkansas journalist Alan Leveritt resisted pressure to renounce boycotts of Israel—jeopardizing crucial advertising money for his newspaper from the U.S. state.

Director Julia Bacha’s documentary Boycott follows the stories of these three diverse individuals to examine how U.S. laws punishing political boycotts have spread across the U.S. All three individuals sued their respective states over the restrictions.

The documentary notes that between 2015 and 2021, 33 U.S. states passed legislation or executive orders that allows for punishing individuals or companies that express support for boycotting Israel. In a majority of the states, that applies not only to Israel, but settlements in the Occupied West Bank that are considered illegal under international law.



Calls to boycott Israel have grown in recent years amid concern about its treatment of Palestinians. The Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement—which was formally launched in 2005 by a coalition of about 170 Palestinian grassroots and civil society groups—targets international companies they say are engaged in violations of Palestinian human rights. The movement says it draws its inspiration from boycotts of South Africa during apartheid.

Leading Palestinian, Israeli, and international rights groups—including Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and B’Tselem—have called the situation in the Occupied West Bank “apartheid,” which a U.N. expert echoed last year.

In the U.S., rights groups have warned that the anti-boycott legislation chills free speech and sets a precedent for cracking down on other political boycotts. The powerful right-wing American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is now pushing states to adopt legislation that would apply to political boycotts covering the fossil fuel, big agriculture, and gun industries, The Guardian reported in November. The Eliminate Boycotts Act has its roots in legislation in more than 30 states that block boycotts of Israel, the newspaper added.

TIME spoke with Bacha about why the documentary is relevant in light of escalating violence in the West Bank; how these laws are enforced; and the latest on activists’ fight against anti-boycott bills in state legislatures.

[Boycott was released March 1 on Amazon Prime, Google Play, Apple TV, and Vimeo. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.]
TIME: Why do you think Boycott is important viewing for Americans?

Bacha: Americans are increasingly understanding the situation on the ground in Israel and Palestine and want to be able to take action. A 2022 Gallup poll showed a major increase in the number of Democrats wanting to express solidarity with Palestinians over the last two decades.

That has caused a shift in strategy in the U.S. and Europe. It used to be that the Israel lobby was winning the debate in America, but that’s no longer the case. When you can’t win the debate anymore, you need to suppress the debate and you don’t want that conversation to even start in the first place.

These anti-boycott laws that are spreading here in America are an attempt to stifle support when Americans are increasingly aware of the increased violence that Palestinians are facing on a daily basis. As things continue to deteriorate even further in Israel and Palestine, there will be a desire internationally to join in solidarity with the Palestinian people. That is the trend. That is what we’ve seen in other cases, like in South Africa.


Bahia Amawi, 2nd from left, with her children and husband as seen in Boycott.
Courtesy Just Vision

You have previously worked on documentaries about Palestinian and Israeli life. Why did you decide to focus on anti-boycott laws in the U.S.?

This is our first documentary in the U.S. In 2015, Israel enacted a law punishing Israelis calling for a boycott of the country. That became an inspiration across Europe and the U.S. and we understood that until these measures faced public scrutiny, they would continue to spread.

In most of America today, if you want to keep your public contract, you need to sign a pledge promising that you’re not going to boycott Israel. That is a pretty significant addition to your commitments to your employer that have absolutely nothing to do with your professional responsibilities. This is a foreign policy matter—now introduced as a condition for employment. Some observers have called this a new McCarthy era where your political viewpoint about Israel and Palestine is monitored. When we saw that there were Americans from different political backgrounds who are challenging these bills, we felt there was a compelling narrative thread to follow.
What do we know about how these laws are enforced?

The only way that you can actually enforce this law is by monitoring speech—by going to people’s social media and seeing if they are calling for a boycott, seeing what organizations they are members of, and observing whether they are going to pro-Palestinian protests. So you’re talking about a pretty significant surveillance system that needs to be imposed on millions of Americans who hold government contracts, including those on the county and municipal level. In its full form, the laws are pretty terrifying.

But in its practical form, it’s more like what was faced by newspaper editor Alan Leveritt. If the government doesn’t like you, it is more likely that the law will be enforced against you. [The Arkansas Times is a liberal newspaper in a conservative, southern state.] It’s a way of punishing political opponents.

After Alan refused to sign the pledge that his newspaper would not boycott Israel, the state stopped advertising in his newspaper.


Alan Leveritt, publisher of the Arkansas Times, sitting in a staff meeting.
Courtesy Just Vision

Has anything major changed since the film’s production wrapped up that is important to know regarding these anti-boycott bills?

We always wondered whether these bills could become templates for attacking boycotts in other issue areas. That has started happening for those with public contracts in many states who may want to boycott the fossil fuel and firearms industries, as well as those related to racial equality and rights for transgender people and reproductive rights.

Republicans are really using the anti-boycott bills as a centerpiece of their culture wars. The language in these bills is often the same. And state lawmakers have publicly spoken about where they got their inspiration from.
When it comes to the lobbying process for the anti-boycott bills regarding Israel, who has been most influential?

One player that Americans are beginning to become aware about is ALEC. They have been incredibly successful at passing cookie cutter bills across state lines. ALEC is an evangelical organization and many of its members push very socially conservative ideas. ALEC helped the anti-boycott bills targeting Palestinian human rights to spread quickly across the country with little scrutiny or debate.
What made you focus on the three characters at the center of the story?

We chose to focus on Bahia, Mik, and Alan because it helped you see the diversity of individuals affected by the anti-boycott laws.


Mik Jordahl and son at the US-Mexico border.
Courtesy Just Vision

Bahia is Palestinian American; she has family in the West Bank. This Sunday, when settlers went on a rampage in Huwara, she was scared for her family. If this was happening two years ago while she still worked in the Texas school system, she would have been scared to speak about it because she could have been violating a contract—which prevents her from being able to express solidarity with her own family in the West Bank.

We also have Mik Jordahl, the lawyer in Arizona. He hadn’t been particularly active with pro-Palestinian politics. He visited the West Bank with his son and once he saw what was happening, he decided that he didn’t want his money to go toward companies that were benefiting from the oppression of the Palestinian people.

Alan Leveritt symbolizes what I think is probably where the vast majority of Americans are today. They might not be very involved or feel that they know much about Israel and Palestine. It’s not a priority. He has a local newspaper that covers Arkansas stories. That’s his focus. And then this bill appeared. He’s not boycotting Israel but he knew right away that this was a complete violation of the freedom of the press.
There’s a scene in Boycott where you capture a top Arkansas Democrat explaining that he voted for an anti-boycott law because he didn’t know much about it, and in hindsight that he would have voted against it. Can you tell us more?

Our research underscores that moment as pretty typical. For many lawmakers, including Democrats, they were presented with a bill introduced to them as pro-Israel and they just signed it.

This isn’t just about the Palestinian movement, right? This is about the First Amendment. This idea that they can just pass bills challenging something so fundamental to the identity of America—the First Amendment, freedom of speech—shows that there really needs to be broader accountability.
‘The Arsonists Are Running the Fire Station’. Why Israeli Settler Attacks Are Growing More Frequent


Yasmeen Serhan
Fri, March 3, 2023 

TOPSHOT-PALESTINIAN-ISRAEL-CONFLICT
A Palestinian man stands amid torched cars at a scrapyard in a house in Huwara, in the occupied West Bank, on Feb. 27, 2023.
 Credit - Jaafar Ashtiyeh / AFP via Getty Images

2022 was the deadliest year in decades for Palestinians living under Israeli military occupation, in which some 146 people were killed by Israeli forces. This year is on track to be even deadlier. In January and February, at least 60 Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces or settlers in the occupied West Bank, according to the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem. (At least 14 Israelis have been killed this year following attacks from Palestinians.) The latest death, on Thursday night, was of a 15-year-old Palestinian boy in the West Bank town of Azzun. The Israeli military alleges he was throwing fireworks at Israeli motorists; the Palestinian health ministry says he was shot in the back.

Analysts warn that the situation is a tinderbox—more so after this week’s deadly and destructive rampage on the town of Huwara in the West Bank, where Israeli settlers torched dozens of Palestinian homes and cars, in response to the killing of two Israelis on Feb. 26. An Israeli general, as well as observers within and beyond the country, have since described it as a pogrom. The kind of violence seen in Huwara “is becoming more normalized,” says Sally Abed, a Palestinian citizen of Israel and member of the national leadership at Standing Together, one of the largest Arab-Jewish grassroots movements in Israel who was among those blocked from visiting Huwara. Earlier this week, Israeli finance minister Bezalel Smotrich said that he believes Huwara should be “wiped out” not by settlers, but by the state.

While settlements—which are illegal under international law—have continued to expand under successive Israeli governments, it wasn’t until the formation of its latest government under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in December that Israeli settlers have received such explicit backing from the state. That is because this government, the most right-wing the country has ever known, is made up of some of the biggest proponents of Israeli settlement expansion in, and eventual annexation of, the West Bank.

Israel’s current government includes Smotrich, himself an Israeli settler, and Itamar Ben-Gvir, the national security minister whose political background had excluded him from Israel’s mandatory military conscription (Ben-Gvir was once an active member of Kach, a since-outlawed extremist and anti-Arab party). While Ben-Gvir oversees the country’s policing, Smotrich was recently granted administrative authority over the West Bank—a move that the Israeli human rights lawyer Michael Sfard and others say is tantamount to de jure annexation, as it effectively transfers the control of occupied territory from Israeli military to civilian control. An editorial in Haaretz, Israel’s liberal newspaper of record, decried the decision for establishing “a formal, full-fledged apartheid regime.”

Experts and activists tell TIME that this political context is inextricably linked to the surge in deadly violence within Israel and the Palestinian territories. As Israel has ramped up the number of deadly military raids on Palestinian towns, the number of Palestinian attacks on Israelis has also risen. Meanwhile, settler violence against Palestinians continues to rise apace, with B’Tselem recording dozens of incidents in January alone. Dror Sadot, a spokesperson for the organization, says that the Israeli military rarely interferes in these attacks, as was the case in Huwara; in some cases, the military has aided the settlers in their attacks.

Read More: Settler Attacks in the West Bank Are On the Rise. Israel’s New Leaders May Make it Worse

The government’s relative inaction on settler violence reinforces the notion that “settler violence is state violence,” says Sadot. “They are part of a policy that is well-funded and well-backed by the state. This policy is meant to take over Palestinian land and where the government can’t do this by ‘official’ means, they do it by less official means, which is to back the settler violence.”

Under Netanyahu, Israeli ministers are now doing so explicitly, sending the message to Israeli settlers that they can continue to act with the state’s blessing. “They are completely emboldened by this government,” says Mairav Zonszein, an Israel-based senior analyst at the International Crisis Group. “They have the legitimacy that they didn’t have before politically and that gives settlers a lot more audacity.”

Absent a strong response from the Israeli government or its international allies, experts add that the violence is only bound to get worse. While Smotrich’s comments about Huwara were roundly criticized by the U.S. and others, international attention has largely focused, they say, on Netanyahu’s proposed judicial reforms that are set to weaken checks and balances on the government.

“The arsonists are running the fire station,” says Yousef Munayyer, a nonresident fellow at the Arab Center in Washington, D.C. and an expert on Israeli and Palestinian affairs. “We seem to be on the edge of something; it wouldn’t take much to push the situation over that edge.”

Palestinians in occupied West Bank live with uncertainty

Tania Kraemer in Masafer Yatta, Israeli-occupied West Bank
11 hours ago

Palestinian residents in the Israeli-occupied West Bank could soon be evicted from their homes. The area in which they live is at the center of a long-standing court battle.

Uncertainty overshadows Masafer Yatta, a semidesert region in the south of the Israeli-occupied West Bank that is home to several Palestinian hamlets. In May 2022, Israel's Supreme Court issued a final ruling that could lead to the eviction of approximately 1,000 Palestinian residents who live in the rural area, which is also known as Firing Zone 918 — an Israeli army training ground.

In recent weeks, local media, residents and Israeli human rights groups have reported on imminent evictions in Masafer Yatta.

"Every day, they put more and more pressure on us with checkpoints here and there. Basically, they want us to leave," said 35-year-old Jaber Dababseh, a Palestinian resident from the village of Khallet Athaba.

The father of five, who has been living with the threat of eviction for many years, added that he would never leave the area in the South Hebron Hills that he calls home.

The legal battle over Masafer Yatta has been ongoing for over 20 years — in Israeli courts and on the ground.

The Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories, the Israeli military body that administers civil affairs in the area, has not commented on any such imminent plans. However, in a statement given to DW in January, it said that the "firing zone 918 is defined as a closed military area and serves for the training of IDF [Israel Defense Forces] soldiers. Accordingly, it is a criminal offense and a danger to human life to enter there without official IDF approval."

Several demolitions in recent years

The Israeli military has carried out a number of demolitions in the area in recent years. Last November, for example, the military tore down a small primary school not long after it had been erected. The single-story structure in Khirbet a-Safai al-Foqa, which was built with the help of donations, was used by around20 schoolchildren from nearby communities.

The debris of a makeshift school in Masafer Yatta in November 2022

The Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories subsequently released a statement saying it had "carried out enforcement steps against a structure that was built illegally in Firing Zone 918 in the South Hebron Hills," adding that "entry into it without a permit constitutes a violation of the law and endangers human life."



Soon after the demolition, villagers erected a makeshift tent over the debris. When DW visited in late November 2022, Palestinian first graders were learning the English alphabet in one corner of the tent. On the other side, Ashraf Shreteh was teaching math to three eager students perched over two tables.

Palestinian kids in a tent that was built over the the rubble

"We were very optimistic when we established this school.There is no choice but to rebuild it, but the mood here is pessimistic at times," he told DW.

"We just want our kids to have a normal life, we want them to work hard, to study well and we want them to be the best," the head of the school, Issa Mahamreh, told DW in November.

Just a few weeks later, the makeshift tent serving as the school was also destroyed.
Who has the right to the land?

Masafer Yatta is located in the so-called Area C, which makes up more than 60% of the Israeli-occupied West Bank. It is under full Israeli control. Most houses in the area, where winters are cold and summers are very hot, are simple structures with corrugated roofs and adjoining pens for livestock.

In May 2022, Israel's Supreme Court ruled that the residents of eight villages of Masafer Yatta were unable to prove their residence in the area before the closed military zone known as Firing Zone 918 was declared back in 1980. It also said villagers had rejected a compromise that would have allowed them to enter the area during certain, restricted times of the year.

Many residents in the area of Masafer Yatta live from agriculture, largely sheep and goat farming

Israeli settlements, which are considered illegal under international law, have expanded on several hills over the years. In recent weeks, various countries including Germany and the United States, have again condemned settlement plans.

One of the outposts in the area, Avigail — which was previously considered illegal under Israeli law — is part of a group of nine settlements in the occupied West Bank, for which Israel's new far-right government recently granted retroactive authorization.

The Palestinian families, many of whom earn a living from traditional agriculture and from sheep and goat herding, have said they were living in the area long before Israel occupied the West Bank in the Six-Day War of 1967.

Naomi Linder Kahn from Regavim, a pro-Israeli settlement organization monitoring the area, disagrees with the villagers. "I think, first of all, these villages shouldn't be there. The villages themselves are a fiction. They're a method of taking over land and they shouldn't be there," she told DW. "And second of all, a lot of this is provocation that is agitated by foreign anarchists that come here to do all sorts of things to provoke the Jewish communities that have been there for decades legally."

Palestinian families have said they have lived in Masafer Yatta since long before Israel occupied the West Bank
Mussa Qawasma/REUTERS


Access to villages for Palestinians is increasingly difficult

Since the Supreme Court ruling in May 2022, Israeli and foreign activists providing support to Palestinian communities say they have been stopped at mobile military checkpoints between the villages.

Israeli activists sometimes accompany Palestinian shepherds in order to shield them from potential settler violence as they take their sheep to graze. But reaching the communities in Masafer Yatta has become harder, they say, claiming it's a way of indirectly pushing residents out.

"We are not going to see people put on trucks and be forced to be transferred in that way because of the optics," said Dror Sadot, a spokesperson for the Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem. "But what we are seeing right now — and what we are expecting to see — is multiple demolitions and checkpoints, basically making their lives unbearable to live in this area in order for them to leave."



'They don't want us to stay or to be here'

Israel rarely, if at all, issues building permits to Palestinians residents in the Masafer Yatta area. As a result, several residents and shepherds have repurposed some of the many caves in this hilly landscape to serve as living quarters, as they did in ancient times.

Jaber Dababseh from the village of Khallet Athaba sits in his carefully terraced garden, lined with young trees. It stands out in the arid landscape.

His house has been demolished five times already, as has that of his brother, he said. Some parts of the kitchen remain standing, and a tent serves as his living room.

Like most of his neighbors, Dababseh, who sometimes works as a construction worker, does not have a building permit. He has prepared a nearby cave to live in — in case the rest of his house is knocked down.

"Every time the civil administration comes with a different pretext. They say, 'go and get the permits'," he told DW. "I tried more than once to get permission. They don't want us to stay or to be here."

Dababseh said he hoped for more international pressure. European Union representatives have visited the area over the past year, condemning demolitions and further changes.

Last year, letters by some members of the US Congress urged US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to publicly condemn the forced transfer of Palestinian residents, calling it a "grave breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention."

The convention provides protection for civilians of territories invaded or occupied by foreign military forces.

Crossing borders
PHOTO ESSAY HERE

Nearly 50,000 Palestinians officially work in Israel, while around 30,000 cross the border illegally every day from the West Bank to work. Israel does not make it easy for either group.



Day begins before dawn

Taysir Abu Sharif Hader is one of 47,000 Palestinians with an official work permit who cross the border from the West Bank every day. Every morning before sunrise, he makes his way to the Qalqilya checkpoint to get to his job in Israel.



Long wait

The Palestinians who work legally in Israel have to be patient at the border crossing. But they don't have a choice - there is little work in the West Bank. And if they do find it, they can expect to make only about a quarter of the wages available in Israel.

Early start

Palestinians have the opportunity to cross the border from 4 to 6 am. During this time, it's not uncommon for angry scuffles to break out among the workers if a gate at the border terminal isn't opened, or if the process takes too long.

Interdependence

In 2000, more than 160,000 Palestinians worked in Israel. But Israel is dependent on the workforce, a fact that became particularly evident in 2001.

Fewer work permits since 2001

The Israeli government knows all too well that its agriculture sector needs Palestinian workers. After a suicide attack in mid-2001, all Palestinians were initially barred from entering the country. But the government subsequently decided to allow 5,000 farm laborers back across the border - just in time for the olive harvest.

Buses waiting in Israel

Some 47,000 Palestinians with official work permits make the daily commute from the West Bank. After crossing the border, they are bused to their workplaces.I

Lower income

Guest workers from the West Bank earn around 50 percent of the salary of an Israeli worker. That represents a significant saving for Israeli entrepreneurs, and for Palestinians it is still more financially rewarding than a job at home.

Illegal workers earn less

In addition to the almost 50,000 legal workers, there are also around 30,000 Palestinians who cross the border illegally. They earn about a quarter of an Israeli salary.

In danger

Israeli army patrols repeatedly pick up illegal border crossers. They're usually sent back the same day. Being caught makes it even more difficult for Palestinians to get an official work permit

Edited by: Anne Thomas, Kate Hairsine, Ben Knight