The West Bank community of Umm al-Khair has been consumed by the illegal Israeli settlement of Carmel. But despite losing land and loved ones, Palestinians there refuse to leave. “This is my land,” says Ahmad Hathaleen. “This is where I belong.”
The Palestinian communities of Masafer Yatta have been in Israel’s cross hairs for 40 years. Its inhabitants now fear that a recent Israeli military order is a bid to expel them from their lands once and for all.
With the start of the new school year, Palestinian children in Masafer Yatta defy Israeli army and settler harassment to go to class in tents, since Israel demolished their school last year.
Israeli forces demolished a Palestinian primary school in the Masafer Yatta area of the southern occupied West Bank on Wednesday, under the pretext that the school was built “illegally” in an active Israeli military firing zone.
Following the demolition, an Israeli army spokesperson claimed that the school itself was a hoax and that it was an unoccupied building being used as a publicity stunt. But Palestinians from Masafer Yatta say the school, which was built with funding from the Palestinian Authority and EU, was built to give much-needed education access to school children living in remote areas of the occupied West Bank.
The petition was filed to protect two schools and 32 other structures, including a health clinic, from demolition in the heart of Masafer Yatta.
President Biden has spoken clearly of his commitment to human rights and the residents of Masafar Yatta hoped he would acknowledge the threat we face during his recent visit to Palestine. However, when the Israeli army canceled live ammunition training in our villages in for the duration of the president’s visit, he chose to ignore what could soon become the largest forced displacement of Palestinians ever since 1967.
The Israeli High Court on Wednesday greenlit the forcible expulsion of 1,200 Palestinians in the Masafer Yatta area of the southern occupied West Bank, ending a more than two-decade battle in the courts.