Amnesty: Israeli Court Approves A War Crime by Okaying Demolition of Khan Al-Ahmar

Rasa - Israel’s supreme court upheld an order to destroy a Palestinian Bedouin village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, despite strong international appeal against the move.

News ID: 439446

Date: 08 September 2018 - 19:12

RNA - Responding to the Israeli Supreme Court’s decision to approve the demolition of Khan al-Ahmar, by rejecting the desperate last resort petitions from residents of the West Bank village, Saleh Higazi, Head of Office in Jerusalem for Amnesty International, said “with this shameful and manifestly unlawful ruling the Supreme Court has confirmed a pattern of complicity in the crime of forcible transfer of Palestinian communities for the expansion of Jewish only settlements. The court has not only completely denied the petitioners the protection provided to them by International Humanitarian Law, it has also validated the discriminatory policies of the Israeli authorities”, WAFA reported.

“If the international community does not immediately take the necessary action to stop this crime from taking place, thousands of other Palestinians surrounding Jerusalem and in the Jordan Valley will now face an imminent risk of forced displacement,” Higazi added.

Khan al-Ahmar is one of 46 Palestinian communities in central West Bank that Israel wants to forcibly transfer to make way for illegal Jewish-only settlements.

On 24 May, Israel’s Supreme Court ruled in favor of demolishing the village.

On 4 July, the Israeli army attempted to forcibly evict the residents of Khan al-Ahmar, violently attacking them and solidarity activists. This propelled further legal action from the community in the hope of protecting their village.

Over the past 10 years, more than 25 homes in Khan al-Ahmar have been demolished by the Israeli authorities. The village has more than 160 structures, including a school, a mosque and a clinic, mostly made of metal.

According to Fars News Agancy, the Palestinian government also on Wednesday deplored the decision of the Israeli Supreme Court, backed by the Israeli right-wing government to give the occupation forces the authority to commit an International crime by forcibly displacing and transferring 180 Palestinian citizens of Al-Khan Al-Ahmar village, East of occupied Jerusalem.

"This illegal decision that uncovers the colonial DNA of Israel's institutions that work to provide legislative and judicial support to its executive authorities to confiscate Palestinian lands, eliminate all components of Palestinian life from houses, schools, and health centers in Khan Al-Ahmar and prepare it to serve the so-called E1 colonial project, which aims to create an arc of settlements around East Jerusalem effectively alienating it from the West Bank and killing any hopes for a future contiguous Palestinian State," Government stated in a statement.

"The International community must come out of its ineffective condemnations shell and intervene immediately to defend its human and legal system, which Israel is explicitly penetrating into. Israel has exceeded the parameters of impunity and its unilateral acts of provocation should no longer be tolerated by the free world. The occupying state must be placed under the microscope of accountability and forced to stop its crimes against humanity,” the statement concluded.

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