Palestinian families in the occupied West Bank are forced to move. Especially in the towns that were near or in the same area that Israel dominates militarily and financially (more than 60% of the occupied West Bank).
A publication in The Guardian newspaper, dated this Tuesday, October 31, described it like this: “Life in Khirbet Zanuta, a Palestinian village perched atop a windy hill in the desolate southern Hebron Hills, deep in the occupied West Bank, has never been easy. The community is mostly made up of shepherds who They raise goats and sheep during the scorching summers and frigid winters of the arid landscape, and who have steadfastly refused to leave their homes despite the increasing difficulties posed by Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers, on the one hand. , and radical Israeli settlers, on the other.But after weeks of intense settler violence following the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, The 150 residents of Zanuta made the collective decision to leave. Armed settlers – some wearing reserve army uniforms, others covering their faces – have begun breaking into homes at night, beating adults, destroying and stealing belongings, and terrorizing children.“
One of those villagers – Issa Ahmad Bagdad, 71 years old – told it like this: “It is a new Nakba” (in reference to the expulsion of 700,000 Palestinians in 1948 after the creation of the State of Israel). “My family is going to Rafat. But we don’t know anyone there. “We don’t know what to tell the children.”
The settlers, protected by the Zionist army, after the offensive of the State of Israel in the Gaza Strip, are emboldened and now reach the homes of the Palestinians who live in those areas, committing savage acts.
In this case it is Masafer Yatta – a handful of Palestinian villages. This is area C of the West Bank, dominated entirely by Israel. There, both settlers and the army destroy solar panels, water cisterns and Palestinian buildings. The “excuse” is that they are not legally allowed to be there. Authorization that depends on the Israeli Judiciary, of course. Thus, with nothing and with violence exercised especially against women and children or adolescents, Palestinian residents, despite long decades of resistance to remain in their homes, end up deciding together that the best way to preserve their lives is to carry their belongings. in vans, forced to leave.
Precisely in the Massafer Yata area there are some 3,000 hectares that Israel uses as a military training zone, authorized by the Israeli Supreme Court, through a ruling last May. It is known as Shooting Zone 918. This is considered illegal, according to international law. Starting that month, the so-called “Israeli Defense Forces”, together with the settlers, increased pressure on the families living in the villages near that firing zone, to leave.
But starting this past October 7, the shootings by settler militias, against houses and often against Palestinians themselves, increased considerably.
Thus the State of Israel, supported and through the settlers, is forcing the forced displacement of Palestinians. The objective is the annexation of lands, in order to Judaize them. As is happening in several neighborhoods of East Jerusalem, Sheik Jarrah is the symbol of that policy, but also of the Palestinian resistance.
Source: www.laizquierdadiario.com
