“We will all resist and stay in our land; we have nowhere else to go,” Masafer Yatta council leader Nidal Abu Younis told CNN on Friday.
“Through these efforts, Israel is seeking to separate villages in the Hebron Mountains from the northern Negev in the occupied land, and break the ties of families,” Abu Younis said.
Israel’s Supreme Court of Justice on Wednesday ruled against the Palestinian villagers, accepting the state of Israel’s claim that residents began squatting in the area after the military declared the area a shooting range in 1981.
The court’s move legally clears the way for the deportation of about 1,000 Palestinians from eight villages on the outskirts of the city of Hebron.
The United Nations, the European Union and Israeli human rights groups all criticized the court’s decision on Thursday.
Lynn Hastings, the United Nations residency and humanitarian coordinator in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, said Palestinian petitioners, having run out of domestic legal remedies, are now “unprotected and at risk must be relocated.”
She called on Israel to “stop demolition and relocation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, in accordance with its obligations under international law.”
The European Union said the expulsion of Palestinians would lead to “forcible displacement from their homes and destruction of their communities”, which it says is prohibited under international law.
“As the occupying power, Israel has an obligation to protect the Palestinian people and not to relocate their populations,” the European bloc said.
And the Civil Rights Association in Israel – which represents Palestinian villagers in court – accused the court of approving a move that “leads families, children and the elderly without a roof over their heads”. It said the ruling was “irregular and would carry serious consequences.”
Aerial footage
The evacuation of Palestinian residents would separate Hebron from other villages on the southern outskirts of the city.
Supreme Court Justices David Mintz, Ofer Grosskopf and Isaac Amit on Wednesday not only rejected Palestinian claims that they had lived in the area before 1981, but ordered each of them to pay 20,000 shekels. ($5,900) cost.
“We never believed that the Israeli courts would bring us justice. This decision is not a surprise to any of us,” said council leader Abu Younis.
“We, the families of Masafer, have documents proving our ownership of the land.
The Supreme Court rejected that assertion.
The Masafer Yatta family presented aerial footage as proof that villages have existed in the area for 45 years. But Israel argues that Palestinian residents began squatting in the area after it was declared Burning Zone 918, and until then it was only used as seasonal pasture land for their livestock. .
Justice Mintz said in the court ruling that the question of whether the area was a permanent home was “not complicated at all”, as aerial footage from the pre-1980s area showed There is no sign of a human presence there. Mintz also notes that the area was used by the air force to conduct simulated air raids in the 1990s.
The Court rejected the allegation that turning the area into a closed military zone was against international law, and argued that when international law conflicts with Israeli law, the latter prevails.
Palestinians argue that they and their families have lived in these villages, built in natural caves, since before Israel was founded in 1948.
According to the Supreme Court ruling, while the Israeli military declared the area a firing zone in 1981, the inhabitants remained relatively peaceful until the late 1990s.
But in 1999, the military and the Civil Administration expelled more than 700 residents.
The military scaled back the proposed firing range in April 2012, at which point Israel demanded the demolition of eight villages, instead of 12.
The Supreme Court then recommended the Palestinians withdraw their legal action, but two other lawsuits were filed in 2013. The Court dismissed them.
In its ruling, the Supreme Court accepted the military’s position that the land was necessary for their needs.
Abu Younis said on Friday the villagers would continue to resist, despite the legal setback.
“The soldiers evacuated the inhabitants of the villages by truck to other areas [in 1999]but the inhabitants returned the same night against the will to occupy,” he said, referring to Israel. The same thing would happen if this court decision came to fruition. “
