Israel Prepares to Raze W. Bank Palestinian Village
According to the orders, the entire village will be bulldozed, leaving hundreds of the village’s Palestinian residents without shelter.
“Israeli forces entered the village and issued demolition orders for 35 tents and five facilities for livestock-breeding,” Jihad al-Nawaja, head of Susiya’s village council said.
“These racist demolition orders will leave more than 330 Palestinians without roofs over their heads,” al-Nawaja lamented.
The Israeli Civil Administration attributed the decision to raze the village to the lack of infrastructure for the local population. The Israeli government, meanwhile, only provides services to the Jewish-only Susia Settlement, which lies some 400 meters away.
According to al-Nawaja, the demolition of the village is meant to provide dozens of square kilometers of land for the expansion of the nearby settlement.
Susiya resident Salem Abu Haddar, 44, said the Israeli army had handed him a demolition order for his modest home made of corrugated iron.
“Eleven people live in this house; we have nowhere else to go,” Abu Haddar said.
He added that a number of village residents were refusing to leave and planned to resist the demolition orders.
“We inherited this land from our parents,” he stated. “We will not give it up.”
Long-term plan
Israeli plans to raze Susiya village date back to 1982, when the first Jewish-only settlement was established in the area.
“Since 1985, we’ve been fighting Israel’s plan to demolish our village. We’ve petitioned the Israeli courts and international institutions,” village resident Hamed Meghnem said.
But the Israeli government, he said, “doesn’t care about court rulings.”
“We won’t leave,” he added. “We were born here and we will die here.”
Khalil Tufakji, a Palestinian expert on Israeli settlement construction, said Israel hoped to eventually evict all village residents from the eastern and southern mountains that surround al-Khalil )(Hebron.
“Israel plans to confiscate more than 300 square kilometers for settlement-building,” Tufakji said.
“Since 1967, Israel has sought to clear the Jordan Valley region of its Palestinian population,” he said. “Razing the village of Susiya is part of the plan to create a buffer zone along the border between the West Bank and Jordan.”
Israel has recently stepped up its policy of building settlements in occupied Jerusalem and the West Bank.
Palestinian negotiators insist that Israeli settlement-building on Arab land must stop.
International law views the West Bank and East Jerusalem as “occupied territories” and considers all Jewish settlement-building on the land to be illegal.
Source: World Bulletin
