Demolitions and confiscations in communities facing expulsion

On Tuesday, 5 July 2022, at around 12:30 P.M., Civil Administration personnel arrived with a military and Border Police escort and equipped with a bulldozer at the community of Birin, northeast of the town of Yatta in Hebron District. The forces destroyed agricultural land, uprooted 10 trees and demolished a fence and two water containers used for irrigation.

On Monday, 4 July 2022, at around 8:00 A.M., Civil Administration personnel arrived with a military and Border Police escort and equipped with three bulldozers at the community of Khirbet Um Qusa in the South Hebron Hills and demolished the home of a family of 15, including 10 minors, as well as a house under construction slated to house a family of seven, including five minors.

From there, the forces continued to the Za’atut area, east of the village of al-Buweib, where they dmeolished a cistern and fundations of an agricultural structure that was demolished by the Civil Adiministation on 30 June 2022.

On Wednesday, 29 June 2022, at around 10:00 A.M., Civil Administration personnel arrived with military escort at the current place of residence of the Khirbet Humsah al-Foqa community in the northern Jordan Valley, which was destroyed by Israel in July 2021. The forces delivered six families, numbering 38 people in total, including 23 minors, orders instructing them to evacuate their homes for military training for three consecutive days: on 4 July, between 7:00 A.M. to 7:00 P.M.; on July 5, between 7:00 A.M. to 11:00 A.M; and on July 6, Between 6:00 A.M. and 11:00 A.M.

Military training in the communities’ territory is a deliberate harassment of their residents in an attempt to drive them out of the area. The last evacuation of community residents on the pretext of training occurred in April 2021.

On Thursday, 30 June 2022, at around 8:00 A.M., Civil Administration personnel came with a military and Border Police escort from the Um al-Kheir area to the village of a-Rifa’iya, east of the town of Yatta. The forces demolished an unused agricultural structure belonging to a resident of Hebron.

The forces then continued east to the Za’atut area, east of the village of al-Buweib, where they demolished another unused agricultural structure belonging to a resident of Yatta.

During the demolition, the Israel Police erected a flying checkpoint on the road between the neighborhood of Khalet al-Hajar and the central part of the village of al-Buweib and confiscated an unlicensed car.

On Monday, 27 June 2022, at around 7:00 A.M., Civil Administration personnel arrived with a military escort and a bulldozer at the community of Khirbet Ibziq in the northern Jordan Valley.

The force demolished two residential tents, a kitchen tent and a tabun (traditional oven) belonging to two families numbering 15 people in total, including 11 eleven minors. The families live in the community nine months a year and leave for the summer. The force also demolished two tents that served as livestock pens, a tent used as a chicken coop, a tent used for storage and five tents used as tabuns, owned by four other families from the community that also leave for the summer.

In addition, the force demolished a rainwater cistern, a trailer, a water container and a hospitality tent the head of the council put up for community members to use, as well as uprooting trees.

After Israel’s High Court of Justice ruled the state can expel some 1,000 Palestinians from their homes in an area it designated “Firing Zone 918” in Masafer Yatta, the South Hebron Hills, the military informed the Palestinian DCO that troops will be training in the area for a month, every Tuesday and Wednesday, from 12:00 to 6:00 P.M.

On the morning of 21 June 2022, the military placed targets around the community of Khirbet al-Maghaz. Some of the targets were placed on a water container, on a tractor wagon and on sheaves of straw.

At around 3:00 P.M., two Merkava tanks approached the community along with an infantry troop. The force advanced slowly, with the tanks emitting blue camouflage smoke and damaging farmland. When it was about 100 to 150 meters from the community, it turned back and left.

On 22 June 2022, at around 12:00 P.M., a military force left a base within Israel’s borders and headed northeast, arriving at an area that lies between the communities of Khirbet al-Markaz and Khirbet Jenbah in Masafer Yatta. Upon arrival, the force, which included tanks and two bulldozers, stayed motionless for some three hours. It then advanced into farmland and entered a harvested wheat field. Community residents heard explosions, apparently caused by shelling from the tanks. The force then advanced east to the outskirts of Khirbet al-Fakhit, where it stopped for about 15 minutes, during which about 20 infantry soldiers trained in the fields with a helicopter flying low above them. The soldiers destroyed part of a wheat field that had not yet been harvested.

Several activists protested the training. Soldiers pushed some of them, knocking them to the ground. Two Israeli activists were detained for about 15 minutes.

On Wednesday, 1 June 2022, at around 5:00 A.M., members of the Jordan Valley settlement council went to the villages of ‘Ein al-Meyteh, al-Burj and al-‘Aqabah and the Ihmeir area, all in the Jordan Valley, with a military escort and tow trucks. The forces confiscated 22 vehicles, nine of them agricultural, and two trailer water tanks, on the pretext that they had been brought into Firing Zone 900 without a permit.On 15 May 2022, Jordan Valley settlement council staff and soldiers stopped Palestinian farmers from harvesting their crops near the communities of Khirbet al-Malih and Khirbet Um al-Jamal in the Jordan Valley, detained them and seized vehicles.

On Wednesday, 1 June 2022, at around 9:00 A.M., Civil Administration personnel arrived with a military and Border Police escort and equipped with two bulldozers at Khirbet al-Fakhit in Masafer Yatta. The forces demolished the homes of two families numbering 13 people in total, including seven minors, and two storage sheds for fodder and farming equipment, which were all rebuilt after being demolished by the Civil Administration on 11 May 2022.

From there, the forces continued to Khirbet al-Markaz in Masafer Yatta, where they demolished the homes of two families numbering eight people in total, including two minors, which were also rebuilt after being demolished by the by the Civil Administration on 11 May 2022.

On 4 May 2021, Israel’s High Court of Justice approved the forcible transfer of more than 1,000 residents of the Masafer Yatta area after the military declared their area of residence as “Firing Zone 918.”

In the early afternoon of Tuesday, 31 May 2022, Jordan Valley settlement council staff arrived with a military escort in Kh. Humsah al-Foqa in the northern Jordan Valley. The forces confiscated a car, a tractor and welding equipment from farmers who were harvesting their crops, on the pretext that the area is off limits.

On Tuesday, 24 May 2022, at around 10:00 A.M., Civil Administration personnel arrived with a military and Border Police escort and equipped with a bulldozer at the community of al-Jawaya in the South Hebron Hills. The forces demolished two agricultural structures belonging to a family from the village.

On Tuesday, 24 May 2022, at around 10:00 A.M., Civil Administration personnel arrived with a military and Border Police escort and equipped with a bulldozer and a truck at the village in a-Tuwani in the Shafa Yatta area of the South Hebron Hills. The forces demolished an agricultural structure belonging to a family from Khirbet al-Fakhit whose house had been demolished about two weeks earlier, along with the homes of two other families, as well as other structures.

On Tuesday, 25 May 2022, at around 6:00 A.M., Civil Administration personnel arrived with a military and Border Police escort and equipped with two bulldozers at the village of ‘Arab a-Ramadin al-Janubi in Qalqiliyah District and demolished a mosque under construction.