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jerrab » 29 Sep 2024, 6:53 pm » wrote: ↑

29 Sep 2024, 6:53 pm

y Steve Hendrix
 and 
Shira Rubin
May 22, 2022 at 3:18 p.m. EDTAL-MARKAZ VILLAGE, West Bank — The Najjar family knew what to expect on the morning of May 11 when a neighbor called: “The bulldozer is coming.” For the second time in five months, the Israeli military had come to knock down their house.But this time there was reason to fear that the house would be gone for good. After decades of demolition, rebuilding and a more than 20-year legal battle, Israel’s highest court this month gave the military permission to permanently evict more than 1,000 Palestinians here and repurpose the land for an army firing range.Less than a week after the high court ruling, the Najjars’ house was demolished, marking the start of what activists say will probably be the biggest mass expulsion of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank since the 1967 war, when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled or were driven from territories captured by Israel.The court was unswayed by historical documents presented by advocates for the Palestinians, showing what they said was evidence that the proposal to establish a firing range, decades ago, was meant to prevent Palestinians from claiming the land.
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Follow“We had 30 minutes to get out what we could,” said Yusara al-Najjar, who was born in a hand-hewn cave on this same slope in the Negev desert 60 years ago. She looked over the pile of broken blocks and twisted metal that had been her family home and wiped her hands with a slap. “It took no time and our house was gone, again.”The demolitions have sparked expressions of concern from Washington ahead of a planned June visit to Israel by President Biden, coming at a time of mounting instability in Israel’s coalition government and the recent approval of more than 4,200 new housing units in Israeli settlements in the West Bank. U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price, responding to a question about the high court ruling, beseeched both Israelis and Palestinians to avoid steps that raise tensions. “This certainly includes evictions,” he said.Israel demolishes Palestinian home in flash-point Jerusalem neighborhoodThe European Union urged Israel to halt the demolitions. A United Nations human rights panel warned that the “forcible transfer” of residents would amount to “a serious breach of international and humanitarian and human rights laws.”The Israel Defense Forces said in a statement that the demolitions were in accordance with the high court’s years-long review and its unanimous ruling on behalf of the military. 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/20 ... tta-biden/