Facing Expulsion

At ~4:00 P.M. yesterday (14 Aug. 2018), Civil Administration personnel, accompanied by a military jeep, came to Khirbet Yarza in the northern Jordan Valley and ordered a Palestinian family to leave home by 6:00 A.M. the next morning. This is the third time the family has been ordered to leave this month, after receiving temporary orders on 1 August ordering evacuation on three dates. The family moved to relatives in the village of Tubas. Three families from Tubas, which cultivate land in Khirbet Yarza, were also evacuated from the area.

At about 4:00 P.M. on Thursday, 9 August 2018, Civil Administration personnel, accompanied by a military jeep, came to Khirbet Yarza in the northern Jordan Valley and ordered a Palestinian family to leave its home by 6:00 A.M. the next morning. This is the second time that the Civil Administration has ordered the family to leave its home, after it delivered temporary orders on 1 August 2018 ordering the family to evacuate its home on three dates. Using a tractor and a private car, the family moved to a house belonging to their relatives in the village of Tubas, approximately five kilometers northwest of Khirbet Yarza. Three families from Tubas, which own farmland in Khirbet Yarza, were also evacuated from the area. After the families left the area, a Civil Administration officer ordered B'Tselem field researcher ‘Aref Dagharmeh and a crew from Palestine Television, who were documenting the evacuation, to come to Tayaseer checkpoint, where soldiers detained them all for about three hours.

Yesterday, 6 August 2018, at about 4:00 P.M., Civil Administration personnel arrived with a military-jeep escort at Khirbet Yarza, in the northern Jordan Valley, and ordered a Palestinian family to leave its home by 6:00 A.M. the next morning. The Civil Administration handed the family temporary evacuation orders on Wednesday, 1 August 2018 ordering them to leave their home on three different dates. Using a tractor and a private car, the family moved to a house belonging to their relatives in the neighboring village of Tubas. Later yesterday night, tanks and armored vehicles held exercises close to the family’s home and fired mortars. Three other families from Tubas, which own farmland in Khirbet Yarza, managed to irrigate their fields and feed their livestock before the Civil Administration personnel arrived.

At 10:00 A.M. on Wednesday, 1 August 2018, Civil Administration personnel arrived with a military-jeep escort at Khirbet Yarza, in the northern Jordan Valley, and handed temporary evacuation orders to a family of eight that includes three children. According to the orders, the family is forbidden to be at home from 4:00 P.M to 6:00 P.M. the next morning on the following dates: 6-7, 9-10 and 14-15 August. The orders will also prevent three families from Tubas, which own farmland in Khirbet Yarza, from working their fields and tending to their flocks on the above dates.

Yesterday, Wednesday, 25 July 2018, at around 7:00 A.M., Civil Administration personnel arrived with two trucks, a bulldozer and Border Police officers at the community of Jabal al-Baba, located near al-‘Eizariyah, northeast of Jerusalem (in an area called E1, near Ma'ale Adumim). The forces dismantle and confiscated two structures – one had been used as a day-care center for 28 children in the community. The other served as a community center for 45 women, offering social activities and workshops. The two structures were built about two months ago with the help of the EU. This is the second day-care center destroyed by the Civil Administration in Jabal al-Baba in the past year.

On 11 July 2018, at around 8:30 A.M., Civil Administration personnel arrived with a military and Border Police escort, and two trucks, at the Palestinian community of Khirbet Khilet a-Dabe' in the South Hebron Hills. The residents, including a group of children, gathered on the spot and soldiers fired stun grenades at them. Some four hours later, at about 1:00 P.M., the forces confiscated two classrooms that had been placed there several days earlier, on 6 July, with the help of the Palestinian Ministry of Education. The classrooms were meant to supplement the school’s single classroom, which was built a year ago and serves 10 students, ahead of the coming school year. They were supposed to serve another 10 students, who currently have to be driven to school in the neighboring village of a-Tuwani. Shortly after the forces arrived at the community, the residents filed a petition with Israel’s High Court of Justice demanding that the structures not be demolished or removed. Justice Grosskopf issued a temporary order forbidding the state to take any enforcement action until the suit for an interim injunction was decided. The order was issued after the classrooms had already been loaded onto the trucks, but before they had driven away. Nonetheless, the forces refused to unload the classrooms and the trucks drove off. Later, at around 4:00 P.M., Civil Administration personnel came with soldiers and a bulldozer to the area of Shu’b al-Buttom, also in the South Hebron Hills, and demolished an approximately 50-meter long section of a path that the residents paved in early 2017.

On Wednesday, 4 July 2018, at around 1:00 P.M., Israeli Civil Administration personnel arrived with a bulldozer and a two-jeep military escort at the Palestinian community of Khallet al-Khader in the northern Jordan Valley. They demolished a drinking-water tank with a 200-cubic meter capacity that had been donated to the community in October 2016.

The next morning (Thursday, 5 July 2018), at around 9:00 A.M., Civil Administration personnel arrived with a military and Border Police escort at the Palestinian village of Khirbet Susiya, in the South Hebron Hills, bringing with them a bulldozer, a truck and a crane. They demolished and confiscated a dwelling that had been built about two weeks earlier, thereby leaving five people – three of them minors – without a home. The troops then went on to khirbet al- Mufaqarah, about 5 km to the east, and demolished the foundations of a cowshed parts of which they had already demolished about two weeks ago.

That same day, at around 8:30 A.M., employees of Mekorot: Israel National Water Company arrived at the Palestinian village of Bardalah in the northern Jordan Valley with a truck and a military escort. They dismantled and carried off 150 meters of irrigation pipelines which residents had hooked up to Mekorot infrastructure.

This morning, 4 July 2018, Israel continued implementing its policy of transferring Palestinian communities: In Khan al-Ahmar the Civil Administration began paving an access road leading to the community to facilitate its transfer. According to reports by the Red Cross, 35 people were injured in clashes that  ensued. Four were taken to hospital and the rest were treated on site. In the nearby community of Abu a-Nuwar, the CA demolished nine homes and three farm buildings, leaving 62 people homeless. The CA came to Susiya, apparently to plan the demolition of seven structures there. Israel claims it is merely enforcing the law, on building without permits. But the residents are not criminals: Israel denies them any way of obtaining construction permits and creates unbearable living conditions, hoping they leave - ostensibly of their own volition - so that it can take over their lands. Transferring communities in a war crime; no court ruling or military order can whitewash it.

This morning (Sunday, 1 July 2018), Israeli police and Civil Administration personnel arrived at Khan al-Ahmar, the Palestinian community Israel announced it plans to transfer. The troops walked through Khan al-Ahmar, among the residents' homes, in what appeared to be preparations for the planned demolition of the community. Residents reported that a police officer told them they would be forcibly removed and that they would be better off if they left "voluntarily." The police officer declined to name the date of the transfer.

On Thursday, 24 May 2018, three Israeli Supreme Court justices – Noam Sohlberg, Anat Baron and Yael Willner – ruled that the state may demolish the homes of the community of Khan al-Ahmar and transfer the residents from their homes. This ruling removes the last impediment which had thus far served to defer the transfer of the community, a war crime under international law.

On 21 June 2018, Civil Administration personnel, accompanied by military forces, arrived at the community of Khirbet Humsah, in the northern Jordan Valley and delivered temporary evacuation orders to all sixteen families living in a number of separate compounds in the community. Five of these families have been temporarily displaced four times over the last few months. The families were told to leave their homes on 26 June 2018, from six in the morning until eight in the evening on the pretext that the military needs to train in the area.
Video filmed by 'Aref Daraghmeh, B'Tselem