After more than two decades of judicial process, the Supreme Court of Israel rejected the request of the Palestinian community of Masafer Yatta (West Bank) that sought to stop the expulsion of eight villages from the area, claimed by the Israeli Army. Although human rights organizations and entities such as the UN and the EU warned that the measure goes against international law, the verdict gives the green light to what could be one of the largest expulsions of Palestinian populations since 1967.
A 23-year legal battle concluded this week with a controversial ruling clearing the way for the expulsion of some 1,300 Palestinian residents south of Hebron in the occupied West Bank.
On the night of Wednesday, May 4, when Israel began the celebrations for the 74th anniversary of the creation of its state, the Israeli Supreme Court rejected the long-standing petition of the Palestinian population of Masafer Yatta, who sought to prevent the Army from evicting eight communities in the area (comprising some 3,500 hectares) to use the land for military training.
According to the high court, the Palestinian plaintiffs could not prove that they were permanent residents of the place before the Israeli Army declared it a firing zone in the early eighties, giving way to ‘Zone 918’.
Likewise, the judges ruled out that the expulsion could constitute a forced population transfer – which would violate the Fourth Geneva Convention to which Israel adhered in 1951 – and argued that, in this case, national law prevails over international agreements.
Arguments that, before the end of the Israeli celebration, met with a wide rejection among jurists, Palestinian and Israeli human rights organizations and entities such as the UN and the European Union.
“The decision, interweaving baseless legal interpretation with decontextualized facts, makes it clear that there is no crime that the magistrates of the high court cannot find a way to legitimize,” the Israeli organization B’Tselem said in a subsequent statement.
The Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), which participated in the Palestinian petition, also stressed that the measure was announced “without prior notice, in the middle of the night” and has “unprecedented consequences.”
The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) joined the wave of rejection. Its director for Palestine, Caroline Ort, warned that the eviction “would constitute a violation of international law that prohibits Israel, as the occupying power, from removing members of the occupied population from their existing communities against their will.”
Lynn Hastings, United Nations humanitarian coordinator in the occupied Palestinian territory, warned that “any eviction that results in displacement could constitute forced relocation, contrary to United Nations Security Council resolutions and international law.” A criticism to which the delegation of the European Union for the Palestinians joined, which indicated that “as the occupying power, Israel has the obligation to protect the Palestinian population and not displace it.”
However, it will take more than words from abroad to reverse the ruling, says Basel Adra, a Palestinian activist and journalist, who lives in Masafer Yatta.
“We hope that the international community will move, that it will do something, that it will not maintain its ‘double standard.’ in our land,” he told France 24.
“Of course the international community has tools to stop these violations of human rights and international law from occurring,” adds Dror Sadot, a spokeswoman for B’Tselem, who points to “sanctions against Israel” as an effective way to prevent the eviction and so that “the ministers of the Government, the Army and the Supreme Court assume their responsibilities”.
Violence, demolitions and prohibitions: life in Masafer Yatta
Masafer Yatta sits among the hills and slopes south of Hebron, in the occupied West Bank. It is an area made up of almost 20 Palestinian communities – of which eight face imminent eviction –, in which a total of about 2,000 people live.
Dedicated to farming and raising sheep as a means of subsistence, residents claim their presence on these lands goes back generations, even before Israel’s occupation.
In their unequal legal battle before the Israeli Supreme Court, they faced a common obstacle: Israeli magistrates demanding proof of ownership of the land from Palestinians when the Israeli authorities themselves deny them permits to build.
Still, Basel Adra notes that they gave the court “all the evidence to prove our existence in this area, essentially that these communities have existed since before the occupation.” “But here justice is only for the Jews, for the settlers who build on our land. We don’t have any kind of justice,” he stresses.
For Dror Sadot, the Supreme Court ruling “proves, once again, that the people of the occupied territories cannot expect justice from a court of the occupiers.”
With the verdict, the possibility of Masafer Yatta facing a second eviction is increasing. And this would not be the first.
The first, Adra recalls, occurred in 1999 when “the (Israeli) Army came violently, kicked out all the people and demolished the houses and everything we had in these communities.” From there the current case arose and, through a temporary court order, the people returned to their homes approximately a year later.
Therefore, leaving, again, is not an option for them. “We fight legally, but the occupation does what it wants,” claims Adra, while promising that “we will stay, we will not leave because we have no other home to go to.”
But the threat of imminent eviction is just one more scourge of many that the residents of Masafer Yatta live with. Adra says that the Israeli army “affects our lives on a daily basis.” While Jewish settler settlements “are expanding and growing”, they are not allowed to build infrastructure and, if they do, “are always under threat of demolition”.
According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), since 2011 the Israeli authorities have demolished or confiscated 217 Palestinian structures in the so-called ‘Zone 918’, causing the displacement of 608 inhabitants.
The designation of areas for military training is a common strategy of the State of Israel, which decreed these spaces in almost 30% of Area C of the occupied West Bank, according to the UN, which affects at least 38 Palestinian communities in those areas, many of which were settled before those declarations or even before the Israeli occupation. “It’s a technique to kick us out of our homes,” defends Adra.
And another serious affectation for the inhabitants of Masafer Yatta is the violence of the settlers who, Adra describes, “hunt the horses, kill the sheep, poison animals, cut down trees, burn pastures, while on the other hand the Army destroys our homes, storage, wells and water supplies”.
In a dialogue with France 24, Dror Sadot does not hesitate to frame rulings such as that of the Supreme Court on Masafer Yatta in a broader context of measures by the Israeli authorities “to remove Palestinians from their communities, from their lands, and allow appropriated by Israelis and Jews”. “We are talking about an apartheid regime. It is a regime based on the principle of the superiority of one group over another,” he says.
Israel plans to approve an additional 4,000 homes in the West Bank
Along with Masafer Yatta’s court ruling, Israel announced that it plans to expand its settlements in the occupied West Bank after the approval of 4,000 new homes, which would be ratified on Thursday, May 12, by the Israeli Civil Administration, in charge of the territories controlled by Israel. Israel in the West Bank.
Specifically, according to the agenda of the meeting presented by that body, the construction of 2,536 homes would be approved and the door would be opened to another 1,425 in an earlier phase.
One more advance of the Israeli Government in the installation of buildings beyond the limits of the Green Line of separation, agreed in 1949.
A measure that Israel takes even if it generates friction with countries like Jordan and Qatar or with its main ally, the United States. State Department Deputy Spokesperson Jalina Porter responded in this context that “we strongly oppose settlement expansion that exacerbates tensions and undermines trust between the parties.”
“Israel’s program of expanding settlements profoundly damages the prospect of a two-state solution,” Porter stressed.
“Each new building is also a violation of international law,” recalls B’Tselem’s Dror Sadot. “Again, it is the international community that must stop Israel.”
However, and the Israeli authorities are aware of this, there are no possible repercussions in sight. Not even during the possible visit to Israel of US President Joe Biden, which would take place at the end of June.
Thus, between Masafer Yatta, Sheikh Jarrah and new settlements, the Israeli authorities are advancing on the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem against the international consensus but with no brakes in sight. Although Palestinians like Basel Adra are not resigned: “We hope that this will end one day and we can live in peace and freedom in our land.”
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