The Israeli soldiers linked the hands of Mohamed Yousef behind his back as they dragged him in a military camp near the Masafer Yatta of the Western West West Bank, a collection of Palestinian villages to the Governor of Hebron in late June.
With him, his mother, his wife and his two sisters, were arrested on their land for facing armed Israeli settlers.
The colonists often graze their animals on Palestinian lands to assert control, report without restriction and lay the foundations to establish illegal outpatients, cut the Palestinians from their farms and their cattle.
Yousef knew it, so he went out to defend his farm when he saw the armed settlers.
But as is often the case, he was Mohamed, a Palestinian, who was punished. At the military camp, he ended up with his family under the burning sun for hours.
While Mohamed and his family were released the next day, they fear that they will not have the means to defend themselves much longer.
“Police, the army (Israeli) and the colonists often attack us all at the same time. What are we supposed to do? ” Said Yousef.
The Israeli army did not respond to the request for comments from Tel Aviv Tribune on the incident.
Useful pretext
Things could be about to get worse for Yousef and his family, who, with around 1,200 other Palestinians, could soon be expelled from their land.
On June 17, during the Zenith of the War of Israel against Iran, the Israeli government submitted a letter, a copy of which was seen by Tel Aviv Tribune, to the High Israeli Court of Justice which included a request from the army to demolish at least 12 villages in Masafer Yatta and expel the inhabitants.
The Israeli army has argued that it had to demolish the villages to convert the area into “dismissal” or military training area, according to Palestinian and Israeli human rights groups.
However, a 2015 study by Kerem Novat, an organization of Israeli civil society, revealed that such justifications are a cunning to grasp the Palestinian lands. From the moment Israel occupied bands of West Bank in the 1967 war, it converted approximately a third of the West Bank into a “closed military zone”, according to the study.
And yet, military exercises have never been carried out in 80% of these areas after the Palestinians were dispossessed of their homes.
The study concluded that the army confiscates Palestinian lands as a strategy aimed at “reducing the capacity of the Palestinian population to use the land and to transfer as much as possible to Israeli colonists”.
Yousef fears that her village could suffer a similar spell following the state petition at the High Court.
“I have no idea what will happen to us,” Mohamed told Tel Aviv Tribune. “Even if we have to leave, then where are we supposed to go?” Where will we live? “
Vigorous system
Many fear that the High Israeli Court will satisfy the army and expel all the Palestinians from the “Tir 918” area, a battle that has been continuing for decades.
Israeli courts played a central role in the balance of Israel’s policies in occupied West Bank, described as apartheid by many, approving the demolition of whole Palestinian communities, according to Amnesty International.
The communities currently at risk were written by an expulsion notice and expelled in 1999, and declared that their villages had been declared a military training zone, which the army has nicknamed “shooting zone 918”.
The army said that the breeding communities living in this “area” were not “permanent residents”, despite the communities that lived there long before the State of Israel was formed by Ethnically Cleaning Palestinians in 1948, an event known as Nakba.
With little appeal other than the navigation of a hostile Israeli legal system to resist their dispossession, communities and human rights lawyers representing them launched a legal battle to stop the expulsions before the Israeli district courts and the high court.
In 2000, a judge ordered the army to authorize the communities to return to their villages until a final decision was issued.
Human rights lawyers have since submitted countless petitions and calls to delay and hamper the army’s attempt to expel the villagers.
“The (Israelis) … try to expel us for decades,” said Nidal Younis, 63, the chief of Masafer Yatta Council.
Then, in May 2022, the High Court ordered the expulsion of eight villages Masafer Yatta. The court judged that the inhabitants were not “permanent residents”, ignoring the proof that the defense provided.
“We have brought artifacts (courts), photo analyzes and old tools, used by families for decades, which were representative of permanent residence,” said Netta Amar-Shiff, one of the lawyers representing the villagers.
“But the court rejected all the evidence that we presented as non -relevant.”
Accelerate demolitions
Amar-Shiff and his colleagues deposited another case at the beginning of 2023 to affirm that military exercises must, at the very least, do not lead to the demolition of Palestinian villages or the expulsion of the inhabitants in the region.
The legal battle, and others, is now upset by the Israeli army and the government’s request to expel and demolish all the villages in the desired military zone, said Amar-Shiff.
In an attempt to jet accelerating this request, the Civil Planning Office, an Israeli military organization responsible for construction permits, published a decree on June 18 to reject all requests for Palestinian construction pending in the “918 shooting zone”. The United Nations and Israeli Human Rights groups have been informed of the new decree, although it was not published on any government website.
Through Israel and occupied West Bank, the Palestinians and Israelis must obtain permits for the construction of the Israeli authorities to build and live in any structure.
According to the Israeli Human Rights group, Bimkom, the Palestinians in zone C, the largest of the three areas of the occupied West Bank which were created from the 1993 Oslo peace agreements, are practically always refused permits, while permits for Israeli colonists are almost always approved.
The Palestinians of Masafer Yatta have always submitted many construction requests, hoping that the administrative process would delay the demolition of their houses.
However, the recent decree of the Central Planning Bureau, issued to align with the previous announcement of the army, replaces all these requests pending and opens the way to a pure and simple rejection, facilitating more ethnic cleansing, according to activists, lawyers and human rights groups.
Once the decree has been published, the lawyers representing the Palestinians of the “shooting area 918” will have to go to the High Court for a final and final decision, which is expected in a few months.
“There are many judges before the High Court who will reject this case on face or do not order the army to arrest demolitions until it governs,” Amar-Shiff told Tel Aviv Tribune.
Meanwhile, Israeli settlers and troops increase attacks against the Palestinians living in the region.
Sami Hourani, a researcher of Masafer Yatta for Al-Haq, a Palestinian human rights organization, said that the Israeli army had confiscated dozens of cars since it declared its intention to ethnically clean the villages.
He added that the army seized solidarity activists trying to visit the region, as well as helping the colonists to attack and expel the Palestinians.
“We are now in an isolation stadium,” said Hourani in Tel Aviv Tribune, adding that the villages of Masafer Yatta are besieged and cut off from the outside world.
“We expect the army to achieve massive demolitions at any time.”
