RAMALLAH, Monday, March 02, 2020 (WAFA) – The Jerusalem Center for Legal Aid and Human Rights (JLAC) succeeded in freezing Israeli expulsion orders against 12 Palestinian Bedouin families in Area C of the occupied West Bank, according to a press statement published today.

It said a JLAC lawyer was able to get an injunction freezing the expulsion orders issued against five Bedouin families living east of the town of Anata, near Jerusalem, and seven other families living in Fasayel, in the northern Jordan Valley, as well as cancelling demolition orders issued against their homes and barns.

JLAC began to follow up on the cases of these families since 2009 when they received demolition orders against their homes and animal barns as part of a plan of forced displacement of the Bedouins and relocating them to another area.

Between 30,000 to 40,000 Bedouins lives in different communities in the occupied West Bank, mainly in Area C which makes up more than 60 percent of its area, and their presence there constitutes a "stumbling block" to the occupation authority’s settlement plans in this area.

Concern of the implementation of this policy has increased since Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has declared his government’s intention to annex the Jordan Valley and most of Area C, specifically where the illegal Israeli settlements, recognized in the American so-called deal of the century, are located.

M.K.