Khan Al Ahmar, WEST BANK (AP) — Protesters ascending the windswept hills east of Jerusalem disrupted Maha Ali’s breakfast.
Over the chirping of birds and the cry of sheep, Palestinians support the West Bank Bedouin community of Khan al-Ahmar, which has been at risk of being destroyed by Israeli forces since it lost legal protection more than four years ago.
Intended to encourage the village, last week’s solidarity rally upset Ali. On the opposite hill Israeli politicians gathered to protest and demand the immediate evacuation of Khan al-Ahmar.
The long-running controversy over Khan al-Ahmal has resurfaced as a flashpoint in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with legal deadlines looming and Israel’s new far-right ministers urging the Supreme Court to wipe out villages. Off the map urging governments to implement their approved 2018 commitments. Israel contends that the hamlet, home to nearly 200 Palestinians and an EU-funded school, was built illegally on state land.
For Palestinians, Khan al-Ahmar is emblematic of the latest stage of the decades-long conflict, as thousands of Palestinians struggle for Israeli permission to build in the 60% of the occupied West Bank over which the Israeli military has full control.
After a spasm of violence last week — including the deadliest Israeli raid in the West Bank for two decades and the deadliest Palestinian attack on civilians in Jerusalem since 2008 — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded Saturday with a vow to strengthen Jewish settlements in the Israeli-controlled part of the West Bank, where little land is allocated to Palestinians.
The Bedouins fear the brakes may be off now that Israel has its most right-wing government in history.
At a Cabinet meeting last week, Israel’s national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, demanded that Khan al-Ahmar be demolished “just as the defense minister chose to destroy a Jewish outpost” built illegally in the West Bank. Khan al-Ahmar leader Eid Abu Khamis, 56, said fear had returned to his hut group. “They want to loot the land and give it to settlers,” he said.
The U.S. government has expressed concern to the Israeli government about the proposed expulsion of Palestinians from the West Bank, the U.S. Palestinian Affairs Agency said, citing the cases of Khan al-Ahmar and Masafa Yatta in so-called Zone C.
This zone includes his 60% of the West Bank, which is said to be under full Israeli control. This contrasts with other areas, including Palestinian populated areas, where the Palestinian Authority has private and partial security control. The boundaries of these different zones were part of the 1995 Oslo Peace Accords.
This was a provisional agreement that would last for five years before reaching a final peace agreement.
Nearly 30 years later, Area C is home to about half a million Israelis living in dozens of settlements deemed illegal under international law. They live with 180,000 he to 300,000 Palestinians, and the United Nations estimates that they have few building permits. If you build a house without a permit, it will be leveled with a military bulldozer. Netanyahu’s coalition partners have a radically different vision for Zone C than the one outlined in Oslo. They want to increase the settler population, eliminate Palestinian construction and even annex the territory.
