Israeli Supreme Court orders eviction of 1000 Palestinians
Statement by United Nations Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Lynn Hastings Jerusalem, 5 May 2022
On 4 May 2022, the Israeli Supreme Court rejected the petitions against eviction orders of the residents of Masafer Yatta in the occupied West Bank. The decision affects over one thousand Palestinians including 500 children in the occupied West Bank and allows for the eviction of the residents. As all domestic legal remedies have been exhausted, the community is now unprotected and at risk of imminent displacement.
Any such evictions resulting in displacement could amount to a forcible transfer, contrary to resolutions of the United Nations Security Council and international law. I reiterate the calls of the United Nations Secretary-General on Israel to cease demolitions and evictions in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, in line with its obligations under international law.
After a two-decade legal battle, Israel’s high court has ruled that about 1,000 Palestinians can be evicted from an area of the West Bank and the land repurposed for Israeli military use, in one of the single biggest expulsion decisions since the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories began in 1967.
About 3,000 hectares of Masafer Yatta, a rural area of the south Hebron hills under full Israeli control and home to several small Palestinian villages, was designated as a “firing zone” by the Israeli state in the 1980s. Firing zones are used for military exercises, and the presence of civilians is prohibited.
According to the Geneva conventions pertaining to humanitarian treatment in war, it is illegal to expropriate occupied land for purposes that do not benefit the people living there, or to forcibly transfer the local population.