Letter from B'Tselem Researcher

Dear Friends,

Over the past few days everyone has been concerned with the violent incidents in the West Bank. As always, we at B’Tselem are documenting the cases and pursuing accountability where required. At the same time, we have been devoting extensive resources and efforts to stop the forced displacement of a group of villagers in the South Hebron Hills.

…How would we feel if tomorrow someone were to barge into our home, declare it a military firing zone and evict us? That is now happening to about a thousand Palestinians living in an area the Israeli military has declared “Firing Zone 918.”

In the late 1970s, the Israeli military pronounced some 30 sq. miles of land in the South Hebron Hills, home to 12 communities, a closed military training area and called it Firing Zone 918. In 1999, the military expelled the villagers from their homes, arguing that they were living illegally in the firing zone, despite the fact that these communities were there before Israel’s 1967 occupation of the West Bank. Some of you may recall the 1999 expulsion, the ruined caves that were their homes and homeless families.

The villagers petitioned Israel’s High Court of Justice, which allowed them to return to their homes temporarily. A decade of legal proceedings followed, and Israeli authorities have harassed the residents in various ways throughout that time. In July 2012 Israel informed the Court that it still plans to expel most of the residents of the area declared a firing zone. Expulsion would destroy these communities and is in violation of international law, which prohibits the forced transfer of residents of occupied territories.

In January 2013, the villagers again petitioned the High Court, through the Association for Civil Rights in Israel and Attorney Shlomo Lecker. The justices issued a new injunction prohibiting the expulsion, pending a ruling in the case, which is scheduled to be heard in the coming months.

We have launched a campaign against the planned expulsion. Please share and distribute this information and material as widely as possible in order to raise awareness of the threat of expulsion and generate pressure for it to be called off.

Sincerely,

Noga Kadman

Researcher