{"id":116706,"date":"2018-08-20T12:00:10","date_gmt":"2018-08-20T11:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=116706"},"modified":"2018-08-14T16:27:39","modified_gmt":"2018-08-14T15:27:39","slug":"a-palestinian-bedouin-village-braces-for-forcible-transfer-as-israel-seeks-to-split-the-west-bank-in-half","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2018\/08\/a-palestinian-bedouin-village-braces-for-forcible-transfer-as-israel-seeks-to-split-the-west-bank-in-half\/","title":{"rendered":"A Palestinian Bedouin Village Braces for Forcible Transfer as Israel Seeks to Split the West Bank in Half"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Rayyah washes dishes at her home in the village of Khan al-Ahmar on July 26, 2018.
Photo: Samar Hazboun for The Intercept<\/p><\/div>\n

13 Aug 2018 – <\/em>Rayyah has lived in Khan al-Ahmar all of her 47 years. She raised nine children there, and 24 grandchildren; one more is on the way. Her family and neighbors, members of a Bedouin community known as the Jahalin, found refuge on this scorched patch of rocks and dust in the 1950s, after they were expelled from the land they had inhabited for generations, in the Negev desert, following the establishment of the Israeli state. The land Khan al-Ahmar stands on was under Jordanian control when the Jahalin arrived. Today, this smatter of tin roofs and tarps sits on the side of a highway in the occupied West Bank, surrounded by a fast-growing ring of Israeli settlements, which \u2014 while illegal \u2014 have become de facto suburbs of Jerusalem.<\/p>\n

The village, which is home to less than 200 people and where the only building with walls is a school made of mud and old tires, has become the latest front line in a conflict over land that for decades has determined the fates of Palestinians like the Jahalin. Israel wants the village razed, its residents evicted, and their land annexed to its ever-expanding settlements. Khan al-Ahmar residents say they are not going anywhere and have been able to rally remarkable international support around their cause, delaying demolition through a yearslong legal battle that remains nonetheless stacked against them.<\/p>\n

While Khan al-Ahmar\u2019s plight is hardly unique, what is exceptional about the embattled community \u2014 which is surrounded by the illegal settlements of Kfar Adumim, Ma\u2019ale Adumim, Alon, and Nofei Prat \u2014 is its position as one of the last-standing obstacles in the way of a decadesold plan to establish a contiguous Jewish presence between the West Bank and Jerusalem.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>The interiors of homes in Khan al-Ahmar on July 26, 2018.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Photos: Samar Hazboun for The Intercept<\/strong><\/p>\n

On August 1, Israel\u2019s Supreme Court confirmed an earlier ruling authorizing the village\u2019s razing<\/a> but temporarily delayed demolition, giving the Israeli government five days to come up with more suitable relocation plans than those it had previously offered \u2014 near a dump, and without any land the Bedouins could use to graze their animals.<\/p>\n

A\u00a0day after the deadline, on August 7, the government proposed moving Khan al-Ahmar residents to temporary tents before relocating them again to a new site south of Jericho along with other Bedouin communities facing demolition \u2014 but only on the condition that they would leave Khan al-Ahmar voluntarily. Israel forcibly removed other Jahalin Bedouin communities in the late 1990s<\/a>, and while violent evictions<\/a> of individual Palestinian families have continued since then, Israeli officials have tried to steer clear of large forcible transfers \u2014 an ugly spectacle, as well as a war crime<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In a statement, Tawfiq Jabareen, an attorney representing Khan al-Ahmar, rejected the proposal, which he said proved that \u201cthe plan of the state of Israel is to evacuate all Palestinian Bedouin and move them near Area A,\u201d closer to areas under the Palestinian Authority, \u201cin order to expand the Jewish settlements in places that will be emptied of Palestinians.\u201d Khan al-Ahmar residents have made clear that they have no plans to leave their homes, making forcible eviction a likely outcome.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Bedouins are used to being in the sun, they have lived their whole life in the sun. If Israel demolishes their homes, they\u2019ll stay here anyway,\u201d Eid Abu Khamis, Khan al-Ahmar\u2019s leader, told The Intercept. \u201cIf they put up a boundary \u2014 a meter away from it, this is where all the women and all the children of the community will stay.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the children die from the heat, I didn\u2019t demolish their homes, they did.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

The outside of a Palestinian Bedouin house in Khan al-Ahmar on July 26, 2018.
Photo: Samar Hazboun for The Intercept<\/p><\/div>\n

A Strategic Wedge<\/strong><\/p>\n

Israeli authorities routinely demolish homes built without permits \u2014 which are nearly impossible for Palestinians to obtain \u2014 and often use demolitions as collective punishment<\/a> against the families of Palestinians who attempt attacks against Israelis. In July, Israel demolished a daycare and a women\u2019s community center in Jabal al Baba, another Bedouin community outside Jerusalem, as well as several homes in the village of\u00a0Abu Nawwar<\/a>, near the illegal settlement of Ma\u2019ale Adumim, leaving 64 people, mostly children, homeless.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Map: Soohee Cho<\/p><\/div>\n

But Khan al-Ahmar sits in a uniquely strategic position close to what Israel refers to as \u201cE1\u201d \u2014 an area it intends to expand to create spatial continuity between the West Bank settlements and Jerusalem. So far, those plans have mostly stalled following international pressure, but advocates fear Khan-al Ahmar\u2019s demolition will be the first step toward implementing that plan, which would further fragment Palestinian areas, isolating Palestinian-majority East Jerusalem and splitting the occupied West Bank in half.<\/p>\n

In the 1970s, when Israel expropriated the area surrounding Khan al-Ahmar, Uri Ariel, a founder of the Kfar Adumim settlement<\/a> and today the country\u2019s minister of agriculture and rural development, made no secret the move was part of a plan to establish<\/a> \u201ca Jewish corridor from the sea, through Jerusalem, to the Jordan river, which will put a wedge in the territorial continuity of Arab inhabitation between Judea and Samaria\u201d \u2014 the names used by Israel to refer to the occupied West Bank.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a particularly strategic wedge because it\u2019s in the narrowest part of the West Bank, and because it will complete the process of isolating East Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank,\u201d said Amit Gilutz, a spokesperson for the Israeli human rights group B\u2019Tselem, pointing to Khan al-Ahmar on a map dissected by an intricate pattern of current and planned separation barriers and settlements, and Palestinian areas under various forms of Israeli control.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s fragmenting the society itself,\u201d he added, noting that Israel can easily control isolated Palestinian enclaves by blocking access to their entrance and cutting them off entirely. \u201cFrom a control perspective, that is very efficient, because if you want to disconnect their access, all you need is a military jeep. You put the thing on the road and that\u2019s it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Israeli workers place container houses near the town of Al-Eizariyah in the occupied West Bank on July 9, 2018, to absorb residents of the Palestinian Bedouin village of Khan al-Ahmar, who are set to be evicted.
Photo: Ahmad Gharabli\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p><\/div>\n

The plan to force the Bedouins out so the settlements can expand is hardly a secret: In May, days after a court largely made up of settlers upheld demolition<\/a> orders against Khan al-Ahmar, the Israeli government approved the construction of a new neighborhood in Kfar Adumim, \u201creaching 500 meters from my home,\u201d Abu Khamis told The Intercept.<\/p>\n

Israel argues that Khan al-Ahmar\u2019s school and homes are illegal because they were built without permits\u00a0or an approved zoning plan \u2014 hiding behind a fa\u00e7ade of legality the reality that Palestinians have virtually no access to either, and that what is illegal is the Israeli occupation of their land. Since it occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank in 1967, Israel has declared 347,000 acres of occupied territory \u2014 nearly a quarter of the West Bank \u2014 as state land. But 99.7 percent<\/a> of the state land Israel has allocated for public use so far \u2014 some 167,000 acres \u2014 has gone toward the development of illegal Israeli settlements, the watchdog group Peace Now recently learned through a public records request. A meager 0.24 percent of that land was allocated to Palestinians.<\/p>\n

After the Oslo Agreements, in the 1990s, the West Bank was divided into Areas A and B, which are under the limited control of the Palestinian Authority, and Area C, under exclusive Israeli military control. While the arrangement was supposed to be temporary, Israel has effectively treated Area C as its expansion grounds \u2014 and some 400,000 Israelis live in illegal settlements there, protected by the military. With Palestinian chances of obtaining building permits in Area C \u201cslim to none,\u201d according to analysis by B\u2019Tselem<\/a>, most have given up on the process altogether.<\/p>\n

There are more than 150 Palestinian communities in Area C without zoning plans and therefore at constant risk of expulsion, including 12 \u2014 some 1,400 people \u2014 around Khan al-Ahmar, according to B\u2019Tselem<\/a>. But while Bedouins living in the area around Jerusalem are particularly vulnerable, similar efforts to cut off Palestinian areas of the West Bank are also underway in the Jordan Valley and the South Hebron Hills. \u201cWhat Israel wants and has been striving toward very consistently is maximum land under its control, minimum Palestinians on it,\u201d said Gilutz. \u201cFor the most part, Israel has been creating this coercive environment, trying to force people off of their land as if by their wish, while avoiding the textbook example of a forcible transfer, which is clearly a war crime.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Palestinian Bedouin men sit together in Khan al-Ahmar on July 26, 2018.
Photo: Samar Hazboun for The Intercept<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cThey Want to Scare Us\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Israeli efforts to make life in Khan al-Ahmar so difficult that its residents leave of their own volition started when the nearby settlement of Kfar Adumim was built in the early 1980s. The settlers took over areas the Bedouins had used to graze their animals. If sheep or donkeys wandered into the settlement, settlers would take them and sell them back to the Bedouins, Rayya said last month, surrounded by some of her daughters and grandchildren. \u201cIf we went too close, they started shooting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rayyah spoke to The Intercept from her home \u2014 three shacks of tin, tarps, and scrap wood she shares with her large family. Like many Palestinians in Area C, Khan al-Ahmar residents are not allowed to put up new structures or bring in construction material, so when Rayyah\u2019s sons got married or new children were born, everyone squeezed into the structures they had already built, even though they, too, are subject to demolition. \u201cIf I put something up, they\u2019ll come and destroy it,\u201d she said, adding that a drone flies over the village every day, photographing anything new that residents may have built.<\/p>\n

Recently, Israeli officials came into the village and confiscated solar panels that an aid organization had donated. Then last month, they came in with bulldozers and leveled the areas between tents and huts into a dusty road that residents speculate will be used by the army when it comes to drag them away. Tensions flared that day, and several residents, including an 18-year-old girl, were arrested. Since then, the Israeli military has kept a close eye on the village. \u201cWe can\u2019t sleep. Maybe they\u2019re not doing anything, but their presence there, it\u2019s creating tension,\u201d said Rayyah. \u201cThey come because they want to make us leave, they want to scare us.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>Palestinian Bedouin children at the school in Khan al-Ahmar on July 26, 2018.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Photos: Samar Hazboun for The Intercept<\/strong><\/p>\n

Rayyah was particularly worried about the school, which a group of Italian volunteers built in 2009 with the help of kids from the village, who painted their classrooms with hand prints and drawings of books and flowers. Before the school was built,\u00a0children from Khan al-Ahmar would leave at 6 a.m. and walk on the highway waiting for rides, or trek to schools in Jericho. \u201cIt was very difficult for them,\u201d said Rayyah. \u201cThey\u2019d have to wait in the sun for a long time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Israeli authorities have destroyed or confiscated at least 12 Palestinian school buildings since 2016, and 44 Palestinian schools, including Khan al-Ahmar\u2019s, are currently at risk of demolition, Human Rights Watch found<\/a>. Over a third of Palestinians living in Area C don\u2019t have access to primary schools and are not allowed by Israeli authorities to build any \u2014 leaving 10,000 children to attend schools in tents or other temporary structures with no heat or air conditioning.<\/p>\n

But the mud walls of the school in Khan al-Ahmar \u2014 a sign of permanence \u2014 bothered neighboring settlers, and shortly after it was built, representatives of Kfar Adumim and the pro-settlement group Regavim petitioned Israel\u2019s Supreme Court<\/a> to enforce earlier demolition orders against the village. As the Supreme Court first upheld and then froze authorization to demolish Khan al-Ahmar, life in the small community carried on between hope and fear, while delegations of activists and Palestinian and foreign officials made trips to visit.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Eid Abu Khamis, center, speaks during a press conference in Khan al-Ahmar on July 26, 2018.
Photo: Samar Hazboun for The Intercept<\/p><\/div>\n

In July, addressing several foreign diplomats under a large tent in Khan al-Ahmar, Saeb Erekat, the secretary general of the Palestine Liberation Organization, called Israel\u2019s plans to demolish the village and evict its residents \u201cethnic cleansing.\u201d \u201cYou begin with evicting and demolishing the community of Khan al-Ahmar, and one day you may destroy Dura, Jericho, parts of Ramallah,\u201d he added, referring to some of the West Bank\u2019s most populous cities.<\/p>\n

Bedouins live largely removed from the rest of Palestinian society, and it took some time for Palestinian leaders to take on Khan-al Ahmar\u2019s cause. \u201cLately they have woken up,\u201d said Abu Khamis, adding that Israel\u2019s plan to dissect the West Bank would effectively put a nail in the coffin of Palestinian plans to build a state there. \u201cThey understand that if this corridor is built, then their government is over.\u201d<\/p>\n

To Rayyah, talk of a Palestinian state in the West Bank seems far removed from the reality at hand \u2014 the only home she has ever known slated for demolition, and her 24 grandchildren facing displacement.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have faith. Without faith we can\u2019t go on,\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019re going to pray. And we\u2019ll stay.\u201d<\/p>\n

__________________________________________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/em>Alice Speri<\/a> – alice.speri@\u200btheintercept.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 theintercept.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

13 Aug 2018 – Khan al-Ahmar is one of the last-standing obstacles in the way of Israel\u2019s plan to completely swallow up a broad swath of land around Jerusalem.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":116710,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-116706","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-palestine-israel-gaza-genocide"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116706","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116706"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116706\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/116710"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}