RAMALLAH, July 4, 2018 (WAFA) – Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Executive Committee Member Hanan Ashrawi condemned on Wednesday imminent plans by the Israeli army to raze the village of Khan al-Ahmar near occupied East Jerusalem that will displace nearly 200 Palestinians, stressing that intervention from the international community can no longer wait.

"The protection of the people of Palestine is long overdue. Seventy years after the creation of Israel and the dispossession and displacement of Palestinians continues,” she said in a statement.

Ashrawi added: “The expulsion of Palestinian families then and now and the forcible transfer of our indigenous population to a state of homelessness and despair is completely unacceptable.

“The fact that Israel wants to demolish an entire village where its residents have been residing for fifty years for the sole purpose of expanding the illegal West Bank settlement of Kfar Adumim is outrageous and inhumane. 

“We call on the Israeli government to immediately cancel its unlawful plans to demolish the Palestinian community of Khan al-Ahmar.

“Words of warning to Israel are not enough. If there is no serious intervention from the international community towards the Israeli government and its belligerent military occupation, other villages will be next, and more Palestinian men, women and children will be displaced for another 70 years to come.

“Justice for the Palestinian people can no longer wait.”

The PLO official urged the international community “to intervene and hold Israel accountable for its crimes which are endangering our people, threatening the security of the region, and killing the future of any prospects for peace and stability."

M.K.