Friday, March 29, 2024

Israel bulldozes West Bank village in biggest single demolition in a decade

Palestinian children playing next to their demolished home in the Bedouin village of Khirbet Humsa, (MEE/Akram el-Waara)

The Israeli military bulldozed an entire Bedouin community in the illegally occupied West Bank of Palestine on Tuesday, leaving scores of people—including more than 40 children—homeless during a cold, driving rainstorm. 

Just hours before the cold front rolled through the West Bank, Israel Defense Forces troops razed the Bedouin hamlet of Khirbet Humsa, near Tubas in the Jordan Valley, forcing 74 people including 41 children—one just three months old—out into the approaching storm.

The United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) called the destruction of the community’s 76 structures the largest single West Bank demolition in a decade. 

The IDF soldiers “completely uprooted everything,” Ayman Gharib, an activist with the Popular Resistance Committees, told Middle East Eye, adding that it was “basically anything that these people need to live and survive.”

“They did not even take into consideration the humanitarian side, that there are babies, children, elderly people, and women who have spent their night homeless, under the rain,” Gharib said of the Israeli soldiers. 

“The same goes for the animals, the sheep and cattle, who also spent the night under the rain,” he added. 

OCHA humanitarian coordinator Yvonne Helle called the Israeli action “the largest forced displacement incident in over four years.” 

“The destroyed properties—including homes, animal shelters, latrines, and solar panels—were essential to [the] livelihoods, wellbeing, and dignity of community members, whose rights have been violated,” Helle said Wednesday.

“Their vulnerability is further compounded by the onset of winter and the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic,” she added. “Some of the demolished structures had been donated as humanitarian assistance.”

“Their vulnerability is further compounded by the onset of winter and the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic,” she added. “Some of the demolished structures had been donated as humanitarian assistance.”

The article first appeared on commondreams.org

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