RAMALLAH, November 17, 2017 (WAFA) – Israeli authorities Friday distributed evacuation notices to all 300 Palestinian Bedouin residents of Jerusalem’s eastern Bedouin village of Jabal Al-Baba.
Staff from the Israel’s civil administration, backed by Israeli army, reportedly stormed the village and ordered its residents to leave their homes.
The Bedouin community of Jabal Al-Baba consists of 100 buildings, 58 of which are houses, while the rest are facilities that are used for animal husbandries.
Because the community is unrecognized, the people in Jabal al-Baba live without electricity and get water only from tanks filled by trucks.
Jabal Al-Baba is one of the 18 Palestinian Bedouin communities located within the area which Israeli authorities have allocated for the so-called E1 project. Israel plans to relocate all the Palestinian communities in the E1 area in order to pave the way for building a large new settlement that is expected to divide the West Bank and Jerusalem.
“Bedouin communities in the hills to the east of Jerusalem and in the central West Bank are at risk of forcible transfer due to a "relocation" plan advanced by the Israeli authorities. The authorities have justified the plan claiming that the residents lack title over the land and that the relocation will improve their living conditions,” said the United Nations OCHA in a report.
The UN Secretary-General has stated that the implementation of the proposed "relocation" would amount to individual and mass forcible transfers and forced evictions, prohibited under international humanitarian law and human rights law.
As an occupying power, Israel has an obligation to protect the civilian population in the occupied territory and administer it for the benefit of that population. The destruction or confiscation of private property, including homes, as well as the transfer of settlers into occupied territory, is also prohibited, said OCHA.
The E1 project entails the construction of thousands of new settlement housing and commercial units, creating a continuous built-up area between the Ma‘ale Adummim settlement and Jerusalem.
T.R.
