Israel razes most of Palestinian Bedouin village in West Bank on US election day
JORDAN VALLEY, West Bank, Nov 5- Israel has demolished most of a Bedouin village in the occupied West Bank, displacing 73 Palestinians- including 41 children- in the largest such demolition in years, residents and a United Nations official said. “They want to expel us from the area so that settlers can live in our place, but we will not leave from here,” said resident Harbi…
By Ali Sawafta
JORDAN VALLEY, West Bank, Nov 5 (Reuters) – Israel hasdemolished most of a Bedouin village in the occupied West Bank,displacing 73 Palestinians – including 41 children – in thelargest such demolition in years, residents and a United Nationsofficial said.
Tented homes, animal shelters, latrines and solar panelswere among the structures destroyed in the village of KhirbetHumsah on Tuesday, according to the U.N. official.
Israel’s military liaison agency with the Palestinians,COGAT, confirmed that a demolition had been carried out againstwhat it said were illegal structures.
By Thursday morning the residents had already moved back tothe site, using tents donated by Palestinian aid groups,according to a Reuters witness.
The remains of the demolished village lay across thehillsides, with just two of the original homes still standingsome distance from the others.
“They want to expel us from the area so that settlers canlive in our place, but we will not leave from here,” saidresident Harbi Abu Kabsh, referring to the roughly 430,000Israeli settlers who live alongside three million Palestiniansin the West Bank, which Israel captured in a 1967 war.
COGAT on Wednesday issued a statement saying that an”enforcement activity” had been carried out by Israeli forces”against 7 tents and 8 pens which were illegally constructed, ina firing range located in the Jordan Valley.”
Israel often cites a lack of building permits in demolishingPalestinian structures in the West Bank.
Yvonne Helle, a humanitarian coordinator for the UnitedNations in the Palestinian territories, said that reliefagencies had visited Khirbet Humsah and recorded 76 demolishedstructures, “more than in any other single demolition in thepast decade”.
Israeli human rights group B’Tselem said the structuresincluded 18 tents and sheds.
Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh accused Israelof timing the demolition for election day in the United States,when the world was distracted.
He wrote on Twitter: “As the attention is focused on#USElection2020, Israel chose this evening to commit anothercrime/ cover it up: to demolish 70 Palestinian structures, incl.homes.”
A COGAT spokesman on Thursday had no immediate comment onShtayyeh’s claim. But its statement on Wednesday said: “Theenforcement was carried out in accordance with the authoritiesand procedures, and subject to operational considerations.”
Some 689 structures have been demolished across the WestBank and East Jerusalem so far this year, leaving 869Palestinians homeless, according to the United Nations.(Reporting by Ali Sawafta and Rami Ayyub and Stephen Farrell;Editing by Mike Collett-White)