The Washington Post - USA (2022-05-23)

MONDAY, MAY 23 , 2022. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ M2 A

BY STEVE HENDRIX

AND SHIRA RUBIN

al-markaz village, west
bank — The Najjar family knew
what to expect on the morning of
May 11 when a neighbor called:
“The bulldozer is coming.” For the
second time in five months, the
Israeli military had come to knock
down their house.
But this time there was reason
to fear that the house would be
gone for good. After decades of
demolition, rebuilding and a
more than 20-year legal battle,
Israel’s highest court this month
gave the military permission to
permanently evict more than
1,000 Palestinians here and repur-
pose the land for an army firing
range.
Less than a week after the high
court ruling, the Najjars’ house
was demolished, marking the
start of what activists say will
probably be the biggest mass ex-
pulsion of Palestinians in the oc-
cupied West Bank since the 1967
war, when hundreds of thousands
of Palestinians fled or were driven
from territories captured by
I srael.
The court was unswayed by his-
torical documents presented by
advocates for the Palestinians,
showing what they said was evi-
dence that the proposal to estab-
lish a firing range, decades ago,
was meant to prevent Palestinians
from claiming the land.
“We had 30 minutes to get out
what we could,” said Yusara al-
Najjar, who was born in a hand-
hewn cave on this same slope in
the Negev desert 60 years ago. She
looked over the pile of broken
blocks and twisted metal that had
been her family home and wiped
her hands with a slap. “It took no
time and our house was gone,
again.”
The demolitions have sparked
expressions of concern from
Washington ahead of a planned
June visit to Israel by President
Biden, coming at a time of mount-
ing instability in Israel’s coalition
government and the recent ap-
proval of more than 4,200 new
housing units in Israeli settle-
ments in the West Bank. U.S. State
Department spokesman Ned
Price, responding to a question
about the high court ruling, be-
seeched both Israelis and Pales-
tinians to avoid steps that raise
tensions. “This certainly includes
evictions,” he said.
The European Union urged Is-
rael to halt the demolitions. A
United Nations human rights
panel warned that the “forcible
transfer” of residents would
amount to “a serious breach of
international and humanitarian
and human rights laws.”
The Israel Defense Forces said
in a statement that the demoli-
tions were in accordance with the
high court’s years-long review and
its unanimous ruling on behalf of
the military.
“The Supreme Court fully ac-
cepted the State Of Israel’s posi-
tion, and ruled that the petition-
ers were not permanent residents
of the area,” the statement said.
“The court also noted that the
petitioners rejected any attempt-
ed compromise offered to them.”
The tug of war for these dry
rolling hills south of the biblical
city of Hebron began in the 1980s,
when Israeli officials laid claim to
several areas of the West Bank for
the stated reason of creating mili-
tary training grounds.
This region of 8,000 to 14,
acres — known in Arabic as Masa-
fer Yatta and in English as the
South Hebron Hills — was desig-
nated as Firing Zone 918.
“The vital importance of this
firing zone to the Israel Defense

The World

ISRAEL

In reversal, lawmaker

rejoins ruling coalition

A Palestinian Israeli lawmaker
who quit the ruling coalition said
Sunday that she was returning to
Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s
60-member alliance, ending a
crisis that lasted just a few days.
Ghaida Rinawie Zoabi said
Thursday that she was quitting the
coalition, leaving it with just 59
members in Israel’s 120-seat
parliament. She cited the
government’s hard-line policies in
Jerusalem and West Bank
settlement construction, which
she said have alienated her fellow
Palestinian citizens of Israel.
Two other legislators from
Bennett’s own party have broken
ranks and joined the opposition,

led by former leader Benjamin

Netanyahu. Rinawie Zoabi’s

departure had raised the

possibility of new parliamentary

elections less than a year after

Bennett’s broad coalition

government took office.

But Rinawie Zoabi reversed

course Sunday, saying her main

concern was securing

“achievements for the needs of

Arab society” in Israel and

preventing an ultranationalist

extremist in the opposition from

becoming the next minister.

As leader of a small nationalist

party, Bennett heads an unwieldy

coalition of eight diverse parties —

dovish factions, ultranationalists

and an Islamist Arab party. They

joined forces in June after four

consecutive deadlocked elections

with the aim of ousting Netanyahu.

— Associated Press

IRAN

Revolutionary Guard

colonel is fatally shot

A senior member of Iran’s

powerful Revolutionary Guard

Corps was killed outside his home

in Tehran on Sunday by

unidentified gunmen on a

motorbike, state TV reported.

Although the Guard gave only

scant details about the attack,

which occurred in broad daylight,

the group blamed the killing on

“global arrogance,” typically code

for the United States and Israel.

That accusation, as well as the

style of the killing, raised the

possibility of a link with other

motorbike slayings previously

attributed to Israel in Iran, such

as those targeting Iranian nuclear

scientists. There was no claim of

responsibility for the attack.

The two assailants shot Col.

Hassan Sayyad Khodaei five

times in his unarmored car, state

media said, right off a secure

street that is home to parliament.

Reports identified Khodaei

only as a “defender of the shrine,”

a reference to Iranians who fight

the extremist Islamic State group

in Syria and Iraq within the

Guard’s elite Quds force, which

oversees foreign operations.

— Associated Press

Hundreds evacuated amid

renewed flooding in S. Africa:

Hundreds of people were

evacuated to safety after heavy

rains again hammered South

Africa’s coastal province of

KwaZulu-Natal, flooding roads

and houses and damaging

properties, an official said. The

province is still restoring damaged

infrastructure and making plans

to rehouse people displaced after

flooding last month. Those floods

killed 448, with 88 still missing,

left more than 6,800 homeless and

damaged more than $1.58 billion

in infrastructure.

Bangkok votes in new governor

for first time in 9 years: A former

transport minister in the Thai

government ousted by a 2014

military coup won Bangkok’s first

gubernatorial election in nine

years in what some say is a sign of

Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-

ocha’s waning popularity.

Independent candidate Chadchart

Sittipunt, 55, won by a record

1.3 million votes, according to

unofficial results announced by the

election commission. It is the first

governor race since 2013. Bangkok

is the only Thai province to elect its

own governor every four years

since 1985, though the process was

suspended when Prayuth came to

power in the coup.

Seven dead after ferry fire in

Philippines: A ferry carrying more

than 130 people caught fire while

approaching a northeastern

Philippine province, killing at least

seven people while most

passengers and crew members

were rescued, the coast guard said.

At least seven people remained

missing and 23 others were

injured, including the skipper,

after fire engulfed the craft while

it was approaching a seaport in

Real town in Quezon province

from Polillio island. Many of the

134 passengers and crew were

forced to jump into the water.

— From news services

DIGEST

‘The bulldozer is coming’

Ahead of Biden visit, Israel’s military begins what could be the biggest mass expulsion of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank in decades

maintained by Israeli settlers is

not subject to evictions under the

order.

In her village, Najjar shakes her

head at the idea that she is a

newcomer to the land where she

says her grandparents dug a lime-

stone herder’s shelter in the 1950s

and where she was born in 1961.

Now she and her family have

been forced back into that cave,

which, like many families, they

have maintained over the years as

a kitchen and extra living space.

As the number of Israeli settlers in

the area grew, and with them inci-

dents of settler vandalism and

physical attacks, they saw it as a

refuge from violence.

The simple houses of block and

metal roofing they built have all

been demolished.

Tending to a batch of tradition-

al labneh cheese under solar-pow-

ered lights, Najjar described the

most recent unannounced ap-

pearance of the bulldozer, escort-

ed by more than a dozen soldiers

with automatic weapons.

“They didn’t say why they were

here, they gave us no papers,” she

said. “But we knew.”

The soldiers instructed the

men of the family to stay well away

from the house as the women

raced to grab clothes and bedding.

They struggled with a washing

machine. Many of their belong-

ings were still inside when the

soldiers told them to stand back.

It took less than two hours for

the bulldozer to level two houses

and two sheep pens in the village

of seven families, Najjar said. In

all, the army demolished 20 struc-

tures in three villages that day,

according to Basel Adra, a Pales-

tinian activist who documents

IDF activity in the area.

The IDF has not said when it

plans to carry out more demoli-

tion orders.

What followed was a legal

Catch-22. Residents and their ad-

vocates repeatedly applied for

permits to build houses and string

power lines. Military officials, say-

ing no one was allowed to live

inside a firing range, denied the

applications and then regularly

dispatched armed demolition

squads to knock down the “ille-

gal” structures.

Officials issued the first evic-

tion orders in 1999 but have since

refrained from physically remov-

ing families as the legal challenges

dragged on. Instead, according to

advocates, the repetitive demoli-

tions amount to strategic harass-

ment meant drive the families

away.

“I don’t think we’ll see pictures

of people being put on trucks,

because of the optics,” said Dror

Sadot of B’Tselem, an Israeli hu-

man rights organization that has

worked on the case. “What we’ll

see will just be more repeated

demolitions, which will force the

community to leave because they

can’t live there anymore.”

Over the years, the court has

entertained compromises, in-

cluding one that would allow

evicted Palestinians to return to

the fields on Jewish holidays and

other periods when no military

training was likely to take place.

Residents rejected those propos-

als out of hand.

The high court finally brought

an end to the challenge on May 5,

ruling unanimously for the mili-

tary and finding that the Palestin-

ian families had failed to prove

they had a legal claim to the land

or had lived there before it was

designated as a firing range.

“There is the law that works for

the Jews, but for us it is nonexis-

tent,” said Nidal Younes, head of

the Masafer Yatta village council,

who noted that a nearby outpost

story in Israel’s Haaretz newspa-

per on the document. “We have an

interest in expanding and enlarg-

ing the shooting zones there, to

keep these areas, which are so

vital, in our hands.”

The document was entered as

legal evidence.

Israeli officials argued that the

residents of eight to 12 small ham-

lets in Zone 918 — most of them

tent-dwelling herders who still

wintered in caves dug from the

limestone — could not show legal

ownership of the land.

Often, the designation has

made way for expanding Israeli

settlements, which are consid-

ered illegal by most of the interna-

tional community.

Archived minutes from a 1981

meeting recently found by re-

searchers on the Israeli-

Palestinian conflict seemed to

support that idea. Then-agricul-

ture minister — later prime minis-

ter — Ariel Sharon is recorded

saying it was important to slow

the “expansion of Arab villagers

from the hills,” according to a

Forces stems from the unique top-

ographical character of the area,

which allows for training meth-

ods specific to both small and

large frameworks, from a squad to

a battalion,” the military said in

court documents reported by the

Times of Israel.

But human rights activists,

both Palestinian and Israeli, con-

tend that the real purpose of many

of the firing zones has been to

clear away Arab residents and

strengthen Israel’s grip on more

occupied Palestinian territory.

PHOTOS BY STEVE HENDRIX/THE WASHINGTON POST

TOP: Safa Muhammed Aba al-Najjar, left, and Yusara al-Najjar sit on a bed frame in front of what

used to be their house in the West Bank before it was demolished by the Israeli army on May 11.

ABOVE: The village of al-Markaz in the Masafer Yatta, or South Hebron Hills, area where

multiple houses were demolished that d ay. Israel’s highest court this month gave the military

permission to permanently evict more than 1,000 Palestinians a nd use the land for a firing range.