About 20 Bedouin communities between Jerusalem and Jericho are to be forcibly relocated from the land on which they have lived for 60 years under an Israeli plan to expand a huge Jewish settlement.
The removal of about 2,300 members of the Bedouin Jahalin tribe, two-thirds of whom are children, is scheduled to begin next month. The Israeli authorities plan to relocate the families from the West Bank to a site close to a municipal garbage dump on the edge of Jerusalem.
The Bedouin say the move would expose them to health hazards, deny them access to land to graze their livestock and endanger their traditional lifestyle. They add that the viability of their existing communities has been seriously eroded by the growth of Jewish settlements, the creation of military zones, demolitions of homes and animal pens and the building of a highway, which cuts through their encampments.
“Because of the [military] closures and the settlements, we are living in a jail which gets smaller every year,” said Eid Hamis Swelem Jahalin, 46, who was born in the encampment of Khan al--Ahmar, and has lived there almost all his life.
The relocation plan is the first phase of a longer-term program to remove around 27,000 Bedouin Arabs from Area C, the 62 percent of the West Bank under Israeli military control.
The communities have not been formally notified of the plan, which was disclosed by Israel’s civil administration, the military body governing Area C, to a UN agency.
The head of the Israeli Civil Administration visited Khan al--Ahmar three weeks ago to give verbal warning of the impending removal, Hamis said.
“He said the land belongs to the government, that we are illegally here. I told him that I lived here before 1967, before you even came to our land,” Hamis said.
The tiny communities perched on the bleak rocky hills, which roll down toward the Dead Sea, endure a harsh existence without electricity, running water, sanitation, paved roads and medical facilities. The Bedouin homes are makeshift structures of wood, corrugated iron and tarpaulin.
The nearby Jewish settlements, in contrast, are connected to utilities and services. Ma’ale Adumim, home to almost 40,000 people and which overlooks the Jahalin communities, has 21 schools, 80 kindergartens, a public transport network, libraries, swimming pools and shopping malls.
The area on which the Jahalin live has been designated by Israel for the expansion of Ma’ale Adumim. Many Palestinians see this as part of a strategic plan to close a ring of Jewish settlements that would cut East Jerusalem off from the West Bank. By stretching down to the Jordan valley, an expanded Ma’ale Adumim would also bisect the West Bank, making a contiguous Palestinian state impossible.
“They want to empty the Bedouin from the whole area and they will put settlers in our place and there will be no Palestinian state,” Hamis said.
All Jewish settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem are illegal under international law.
The Jahalin were originally from the Negev desert, from which they fled or were forced out following the creation of the state of Israel in 1948. Now the extended tribe is scattered across the West Bank. Those threatened with relocation say they rented the land from its Palestinian owners, who live in the nearby village of Anata. However, the Israeli authorities say the land now belongs to the state, and their homes, animal pens and small schools are built without permission — which is practically impossible to obtain — and therefore subject to demolition.
All 257 Jahalin families in the five villages straddling the -Jerusalem-Dead Sea highway have been issued with demolition orders.
A school serving their young children, built two-and-a-half years ago from old car tires and mud, is also threatened following pressure from nearby settlers.
“Since the beginning, they wanted to move us from here, but building the school made it worse,” Hamis said, adding that the settlers saw it as a sign of permanence.
The removal plans are not final, according to the Civil Administration, whose spokesman has been quoted as saying the Israeli authorities are trying to find an acceptable solution for the Bedouin whose communities are “illegally located.”
The proposed relocation site is already home to about 4,000 Jahalin who were evicted from their encampments in the mid-1990s.
According to the UN, the site “does not meet minimum standards in terms of distance from the municipal dumping grounds ... previously relocated families report negative consequences, including health concerns, loss of livelihood, deteriorated living conditions, loss of tribal cohesion and erosion of traditional lifestyles.”
Eleven people, including a former minister, were arrested in Serbia on Friday over a train station disaster in which 16 people died. The concrete canopy of the newly renovated station in the northern city of Novi Sad collapsed on Nov. 1, 2024 in a disaster widely blamed on corruption and poor oversight. It sparked a wave of student-led protests and led to the resignation of then-Serbian prime minister Milos Vucevic and the fall of his government. The public prosecutor’s office in Novi Sad opened an investigation into the accident and deaths. In February, the public prosecutor’s office for organized crime opened another probe into
RISING RACISM: A Japanese group called on China to assure safety in the country, while the Chinese embassy in Tokyo urged action against a ‘surge in xenophobia’ A Japanese woman living in China was attacked and injured by a man in a subway station in Suzhou, China, Japanese media said, hours after two Chinese men were seriously injured in violence in Tokyo. The attacks on Thursday raised concern about xenophobic sentiment in China and Japan that have been blamed for assaults in both countries. It was the third attack involving Japanese living in China since last year. In the two previous cases in China, Chinese authorities have insisted they were isolated incidents. Japanese broadcaster NHK did not identify the woman injured in Suzhou by name, but, citing the Japanese
YELLOW SHIRTS: Many protesters were associated with pro-royalist groups that had previously supported the ouster of Paetongtarn’s father, Thaksin, in 2006 Protesters rallied on Saturday in the Thai capital to demand the resignation of court-suspended Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra and in support of the armed forces following a violent border dispute with Cambodia that killed more than three dozen people and displaced more than 260,000. Gathered at Bangkok’s Victory Monument despite soaring temperatures, many sang patriotic songs and listened to speeches denouncing Paetongtarn and her father, former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, and voiced their backing of the country’s army, which has always retained substantial power in the Southeast Asian country. Police said there were about 2,000 protesters by mid-afternoon, although
MOGAMI-CLASS FRIGATES: The deal is a ‘big step toward elevating national security cooperation with Australia, which is our special strategic partner,’ a Japanese official said Australia is to upgrade its navy with 11 Mogami-class frigates built by Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles said yesterday. Billed as Japan’s biggest defense export deal since World War II, Australia is to pay US$6 billion over the next 10 years to acquire the fleet of stealth frigates. Australia is in the midst of a major military restructure, bolstering its navy with long-range firepower in an effort to deter China. It is striving to expand its fleet of major warships from 11 to 26 over the next decade. “This is clearly the biggest defense-industry agreement that has ever
RSS