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UN officials: Threat of demolition of Palestinian Bedouin village 'unacceptable'

February 23, 2017 at 3:53 pm

A Palestinian man sees the demolition of a home at the order of the Israeli army in the West Bank [Wisam Hashlamoun/Apaimages]

The situation which Palestinian Bedouins are living in, with a threat of demolition to their houses looming over them, is “unacceptable”, UN officials visiting Bedouin communities said yesterday.

The delegation visited the Palestinian Bedouin community of Khan Al-Ahmar in the central occupied West Bank district of Jerusalem, which is under threat of forcible relocation by Israeli authorities who delivered demolition notices to all the houses on Sunday.

Coordinator for Humanitarian Aid and UN Development Activities for the occupied Palestinian territory, Robert Piper, and Director of UNRWA Operations in the West Bank, Scott Anderson, visited the small village located in Area C – which makes up more than 60 per cent of the West Bank and is under full Israeli control.

“Khan Al-Ahmar is one of the most vulnerable communities in the West Bank, struggling to maintain a minimum standard of living in the face of intense pressure from the Israeli authorities to move to a planned relocation site,” Piper said in a statement, adding that “this is unacceptable and it must stop.”

Read: Israeli court approves demolition of Palestinian villages in occupied West Bank

Over the past week, Israeli authorities delivered demolition notices to the village’s 40 homes and elementary school, including stop-work orders targeting various structures in the village. Locals told Ma’an at the time that Israeli forces imposed a military closure on the area before delivering the demolition warrants, as faculty and students of the school were prevented from accessing the building.

Despite the fact that the community, and the school in particular, has been threatened with demolition by the Israeli government for years, locals said the issuing of demolition warrants to every single house was an unprecedented blow.

Israeli newspaper Haaretz has reported that Israeli authorities confirmed the widespread issuance of demolition orders was unprecedented in the area, and that the raid was “a declaration of intention in advance of an attempt to evacuate the entire village”.

Read: Bedouin decry Israeli ‘crime’ after village demolition

The demolition notices were issued on the basis of the community lacking almost impossible to obtain Israeli building permits, which the UN has said results from the discriminatory zoning and planning regimes implemented in Area C.

According to the statement released by the UN, the enforcement of these orders in Khan Al-Ahmar would “directly impact the homes and livelihoods of over 140 Palestinian refugees, more than half of them children.”

The statement also highlighted that the orders have also targeted the village’s primary school, built out of tyres and mud. The school was built with the help of international donors, and according to the UN serves some 170 Bedouin children in the area.

“The developments in Khan Al-Ahmar are not unique,” Piper said. “Thousands of families live in fear of demolitions at any moment, and entire communities exist in chronic instability.”

Read: 100-year-old Bedouin woman homeless after Israel’s demolitions

“When schools are demolished, the right to education of Palestinian children is also threatened. This creates a coercive environment that forces certain Palestinian communities to move elsewhere,” he noted.

He added that the international community should work together to support and protect vulnerable communities like the Bedouins, while “insisting that international law is respected”.

The statement reiterated the UN’s longstanding condemnation of the forcible transfer of Bedouin communities without their free, prior and informed consent.