A/HRC/31/73 8/2015).59 In September 2014, an eviction order was issued against the Ghaith Sub-Laban family from their home. According to information received, the main claim of the settler organization which sought to evict the family was that they had lost their protected tenancy status as a result of having abandoned the house. The case was decided against the family by a magistrate who was herself a settler. Following a failed appeal, whether the family of eight, including two children, will be able to remain in what has been their home since 1953 now depends on whether they will be granted the right to submit another appeal. Meanwhile, their social services, including health care, have reportedly been discontinued. This case is illustrative of the environment in which Palestinians in the occupied East Jerusalem live with pressure from powerful settler organizations, and the absence of proper legal protections for Palestinians. The Special Rapporteur regrets that no response to the original or the follow-up communication had been received as of 7 December 2015. 53. Another communication dated 14 October 2014 sent to the Government of Israel by the Special Rapporteur jointly with the Special Rapporteurs on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living; cultural rights; the right to food; and minority issues illustrates concerns related to moves by Israeli authorities to force Palestinians out of strategically significant locations (case previously reported, A/HRC/28/78, sect. V, and A/70/392, paras. 41-44). The communication, in which the Special Rapporteurs urged the Government of Israel to halt the plans to forcibly transfer Bedouin communities of thousands of people living in the Jordan Valley and East Jerusalem periphery, has not received a response. Demolitions occurred in some communities affected by the plans, most recently in September 2015 in the East Tayba Bedouin community.60 Some of these communities are located in an area slated for the expansion of Israeli settlements, including in the area known as “E-1”. In addition to violations of a range of human rights that the plans entail, including the right to housing, article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits the occupying Power from carrying out the individual or mass forcible transfers of protected persons and also prohibits Israel from transferring its civilians into occupied territory. It is feared that implementation of the plan would further isolate East Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank and undermine the territorial contiguity of the Occupied Palestinian Territory. 54. Palestinian human rights defenders perform a critical role in documenting allegations of violations and peacefully protesting against occupation policies and practices. They are often vulnerable to acts aimed at obstructing their work, harassment, threats, reprisals and retaliatory acts, and violations of their rights including under articles 9, 19 and 21 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which guarantee rights to liberty and security of the person, freedom of opinion and expression, and freedom of peaceful assembly. Since the beginning of the escalation in violence in 2015, the Special Rapporteur has received a higher than usual number of reports of harassment, threats and obstruction of the work of human rights defenders. 55. In a joint communication with the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention and the Special Rapporteurs on the situation of human rights defenders; on the independence of judges and lawyers; on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression; and on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association, dated 27 January 2015 (case No. ISR 11/2014), the Special Rapporteur raised a case of alleged arbitrary arrest and risk of imminent arbitrary detention of a human rights defender, and 59 60 16 A joint communication (case No. ISR 1/2015) with the Special Rapporteurs on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living and on the independence of judges and lawyers, was previously sent to the Government of Israel on this case A/70/392, para. 66. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, “Humanitarian Bulletin - October 2015”, p. 14.