One of the many communities in Massafer Yatta affected by Israeli military training. (Photo by OCHA) 

JERUSALEM, December 16, 2017 (WAFA) - Around 1,300 Palestinians in 12 herding communities in Massafer Yatta, south of the southern West Bank city of Hebron, are affected by intense Israeli military training and additional access restrictions, exacerbating the coercive environment facing them, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) to the occupied Palestinian territories said on Friday.

“Intense military training exercises over the past two months and the obstruction of key access routes have exacerbated the coercive environment imposed on approximately 1,300 residents of 12 Palestinian herding communities in southern Hebron,” said OCHA.

Israel designated Massafer Yatta in the 1980s as a closed military zone for training and it has sought to remove the communities on this basis. “Residents have been subjected to a range of policies and practices that have undermined their physical security and sources of livelihood, and which heighten the risk of forcible transfer from the area,” it said.

To make life even more difficult for the Palestinian residents of Massafer Yatta, the Israeli military blocked on November 10 three of the four dirt roads leading to and from the closed area. This action prevented access by the residents to basic services, water in particular.

Israel has declared some 18 per cent of the West Bank, or nearly 30 per cent of Area C, as firing zones for military training. Presence in these zones is prohibited by military order unless special permission is granted. Despite this prohibition, there are 38 small Palestinian herding communities (12 of them in Massafer Yatta) with a population of over 6,200, located within these zones. Many of these communities existed in the area prior to its closure.

The UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said in a report that “International humanitarian law not only prohibits the transfer of the population of the occupying State into the occupied territory, but also individual or mass forcible transfer or deportation of the population of an occupied territory regardless of the motive. Such transfer amounts to a grave breach of the Geneva Convention and is also considered a war crime.”

He said, “Forcible transfer does not necessarily require the use of physical force by authorities, but may be triggered by specific circumstances that leave individuals or communities with no choice but to leave; this is known as a coercive environment. Such transfer is considered forcible, except where the affected persons provide their genuine and fully informed consent. However, genuine consent to a transfer cannot be presumed in an environment marked by the use or threat of physical force, coercion, fear of violence, or duress.”

M.K.