Ramallah, July 17 (RHC)-- A large number of Palestinians are facing imminent displacement as Israeli authorities plan to demolish another Palestinian village in the occupied West Bank.
Human rights groups in the occupied territories said in a joint statement on Wednesday that Israeli authorities had announced the demolition order of Khirbet Susiya village on Sunday, Palestinian Ma’an news agency reported. Rabbis for Human Rights and B’Tselem added that the orders, issued following requests from Israeli settlers, would be implemented after the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.
Local residents say the Israeli regime could move in and demolish the residential and agricultural structures at any time. This is while a hearing is scheduled to be held at a high court regarding the case on August 3rd.
The rights groups say the latest threat is a form of coercion aimed at expelling residents even before the court hearing.
About 300 inhabitants of Susiya village have been facing the risk of displacement since May when Israel’s high court rejected their petition to halt the demolition of the village.
The May ruling was considered the latest setback for the Palestinians in their decades-long battle against forced displacement by the Israeli regime.
The village is located just a hundred meters away from an Israeli settlement in southern al-Khalil (Hebron). Israeli settlers living illegally in the area already control over 300 hectares of Susiya’s land.
The developments come as Israeli authorities are pushing a plan to forcibly relocate tens of thousands of Palestinian Bedouins. The plan, approved without any consultation with the Bedouin community, would evict nearly 40,000 Bedouins from their villages and force them to live in concentrated areas that critics called “reservations.”
Israel regime refuses to recognize the basic rights of the around 90,000 people living in nearly three dozen Bedouin villages in the Negev.
International organizations say several villages belonging to Palestinians have already been razed by Israeli forces across the occupied territories in recent months.
According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Israel demolished 590 Palestinian-owned structures in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem last year, displacing 1,177 people.