The only playground in the Dahamesh neighborhood near Ramle is set to be demolished in the near future by order of the Israel Lands Authority, due to its construction on state farmland.

The neighborhood, an unrecognized community built on farmland owned by the Lod Valley local authority, comprises dozens of homes illegally built by Arab residents.

For many years, the residents have been able to claim basic municipal services from the city of Ramle. However, the neighborhood has no official infrastructure, such as roads or sewerage systems. Also, refuse is not collected from the neighborhood - residents dispose of their own garbage by gathering it on the outskirts of town and setting it alight.

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Until last August, the 200 children living in the neighborhood had few places to play aside from the adjacent railway lines or garbage dumps.

The recently-constructed playground was built with the support of the European Union and on the initiative of the Mixed Cities Project of Shatil, the operational arm of the New Israel Fund. The playground included swings, slides and climbing frames, and was intended to give local children a safe way to spend their free time.

Residents were surprised to find a demolition order pasted to one of the slides declaring the playground illegal and notifying the residents of its impending demolition.

"We are amazed," said the manager of the Mixed Cities Project, Buteyna Davit. "Is this what irritates the Israel Lands Authority and the state authorities? No authority managed to erect a playground for our children. When we do it ourselves they come and demolish it. Why can't the state internalize the fact that there are citizens with equal rights here?"

Dahamesh residents are currently embroiled in a fight against the authority's attempts to demolish a number of other structures in the neighborhood - all of which were built illegally.

In recent days, a group was set up to organize a protest tent, but demonstration plans were delayed due to stormy weather. Local Shatil activist Arafat Ismail suspects that once the bulldozers have demolished the playground, the local children will swiftly return to playing on the railway lines and garbage dumps.

In response, the Israel Lands Authority said: "The issue is the playground equipment and not the playground itself. In practice the playground represents an incursion into farmland beyond the boundaries of the unrecognized settlement. This is an attempt to control state land assigned for farming use.

"The playground equipment could have been erected within the settlement but the residents elected to erect the structures beyond the limits of the residential land assigned to them. The authority, acting according to protocol, issued a order to remove trespassers, and intends to carry it out soon."