84 Palestinians flee West Bank area since July, UN says, calls Israel to follow international law

Children in the Masafer Yatta village of Janba, 2022

Hagar Shezaf reports in Haaretz on 4 October 2023:

84 Palestinians have fled the southern West Bank village[s] of Masafer Yatta since July, according to data maintained by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

The exodus from the Palestinian village[s] near Hebron follows a May 2022 ruling by Israel’s Supreme Court permitting the state to expel residents in order to hold military exercises. The residents who left the areas told the UN’s coordinator for humanitarian affairs agency that the reason for leaving was severe restrictions on their freedom of movement, imposed upon them by the military since the ruling. They said the situation has gotten even worse in recent months.

Until recently, approximately 1,000 people lived in Masafer Yatta. The Israeli army has not permitted the entry of vehicles not belonging to residents, has set up road blocks and has held several patrols in which they detained residents.

According to the UN, two schools in the area reported that 24 students had dropped out in wake of the restrictions. The report noted an incident in September, when military forces detained teachers on their way to school and threatened to confiscate their vehicles.

Haaretz reported a month ago that the army also confiscated residents’ cars while they were parked at their homes, in a step that constituted a ramping up of restrictions imposed upon them. During the past year, a nearby village called Khirbet Bir al-‘Eid was completely abandoned.

Since the ruling, the IDF has conducted several exercises in Masafer Yatta. One exercise involved the use of live fire despite the fact that people live in the area. After a bullet pierced the Khalat al-Daba school, the army said at the time there was “insufficient evidence” that the bullet had become lodged into the roof as a result of a firing exercise. However, it has not conducted any live-fire exercises in the area since that incident.

Nidal Younes, the head of the village council of Masafer Yatta, told Haaretz that families left the village recently because of the difficulty their children are having to reach school. “It has become very difficult for people to move around,” he bemoaned. “People want their children to go to school, and so some of the families left the so-called military zone.” He noted that the army patrol that detains families and closes the roads as the main factor pushing people to leave. He said violent settlers were also a cause of people leaving villages like Samari and Bir al-Eid.

The UN remarked that international humanitarian law forbids the forceful transference of citizens and called on Israel to halt the restrictions on movement, destruction of structures and the conducting of military exercises.

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