Human rights group B’Tselem accuses Israel of destroying 25 Bedouin structures

Some 100 Palestinians were left homeless in the West Bank after the Civil Administration of Judea and Samaria demolished 25 structures in the Bedouin Al-Khdeirat community, B’Tselem charged.

The herding village of 50 families is located just outside of Jerusalem between the Geva Binyamin (also known as Adam) settlement and the village of Jaba, B’Tselem – The Israel Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories said.

It explained that 11 families had lived in the temporary structures, such as shacks and tents, including 70 minors, who had just begun school this week, the NGO said.

It added that the civil administration’s actions on Monday were part of a wave of demolitions in Bedouin communities that occurred in August, including in the Jordan Valley and the area of the Ma’aleh Adumim settlement.

“These demolitions take part in the context of efforts by the military and the civil administration to push Palestinian communities out of Area C. These expulsion plans violate international humanitarian law, which prohibits the forcible transfer of protected persons, unless carried out for their own protection or for an imperative military need,” B’Tselem said.

The civil administration’s actions come after the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee subcommittee on the West Bank took it to task for failing to deal with the issue of Palestinian building.

MK Moti Yogev (Bayit Yehudi) has charged that the illegal Palestinian building is part of a deliberate attempt to create facts on the ground in Area C and to strengthen Palestinian hold on that territory.

Regavim’s director of international relations Ari Briggs said that the number of structures taken down near Adam on Monday was much less than what B’Tselem claimed, but did not have an exact figure.

What was removed was not residential, added Briggs.

Regavim is an NGO that monitors illegal Palestinian building in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

He added that Palestinians had just built an illegal school to service Sussiya, a village in the South Hebron Hills.

The civil administration had no response regarding the demolitions.