Ms Jenn Byrne:

I shall speak a little about the Bedouin as the Deputy has said she was particularly interested in hearing about them. Over the past couple of years Israel has announced plans to forcibly transfer 12,500 Bedouin from areas around the E1 area of Jerusalem and the Jordan Valley to three settlements around the valley which represents a grave breach of the Geneva Conventions. Under the Geneva Conventions a grave breach is separate from a normal breach, not that one can ever have a normal breach of international humanitarian law. States who are party to the Geneva Conventions are obliged to take action to pursue the offenders who have permitted, ordered or orchestrated a grave breach and to try them in national courts. That provision ties member states to taking action.

The Bedouin lead very difficult lives because over 80% of its population do not have access to water or electricity and over 50% are children. As the committee is probably aware, the Palestinian population is quite young but the percentage is even greater among the Bedouin population. When I worked in the region I was based in the northwest of the West Bank and I visited, along with the Palestinian Medical Relief Society, two Bedouin communities. One community was based close to a Palestinian village and had illegal water and electricity hook-ups but the other one could not access same. Our contact in the region told us that it is not that these communities did not have the money; it is that they cannot use it to develop themselves. In other words, any time they built anything it was demolished.

I was in the region as part of a medical relief society and our job was to provide basic medicines and diabetes medication. In these regions the Bedouin population must live cheek by jowl with their animals because they cannot build proper buildings to house their animals. One of the towns, Arab al-Abideen, is situated on a hill and effluent from the animals runs along homes so many people suffer from respiratory illnesses as a result. The town is in the shadow of Alfei Menashe which is one of the largest settlements of the Kedumim finger settlement blocs. The Bedouin can develop but their efforts are inhibited from doing so.