JORDAN VALLEY, Tuesday, May 07, 2019 (WAFA) – Israeli forces ordered 15 Palestinian families to leave their homes to make room for military drills in Humsa al-Fawqa village, southeast of Tubas, in the northern Jordan Valley.

Mu‘taz Besharat, an officer in charge of monitoring settlement activities in Tubas district, said that Israeli military vehicles raided Khirbet Humsa al-Fawqa, where soldiers handed notifications to 15 families, comprised of 98 members, ordering them to leave their tents to make room for military drills over the next four weeks.

The families are ordered to leave their tent homes and stay away from the area three days a week; on Sunday from 1:00 PM, on Monday from 4:00 PM to Tuesday 10:00 AM and on Wednesday from 7:00 AM to 2:00 PM.

The Jordan Valley and the northern Dead Sea make up approximately 30% of the West Bank and are considered the most significant Palestinian land reserves, according to the Israeli Rights group B’Tselem.

Israel continues to pursue various measures to annex this territory de facto since 1967, targeting to ban territorial contiguity between a future Palestinian state and the rest of the Arab world, and utilizes the pretext of military drills in the Jordan Valley to forcefully displace Palestinian families living there as part of ethnic cleansing policy. 

Meanwhile, Israel exploits the resources of the area and generates profit by allocating generous tracts of land and water resources to Israeli settlements.

International rights organizations have considered the continuation of the Israeli campaign, which targets Palestinians in the Jordan Valley, whether though confiscations, demolitions or evictions under the pretext of holding military exercises, as a violation of international humanitarian law.

K.F.