The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has denounced the beginning of the demolitions carried out by the Israeli authorities in the Bedouin community of Bir al Maskub, located in the Jerusalem Governorate, in the center of the West Bank and within the perimeter of the E1 settlements project. The operation has caused the destruction of approximately half of the structures in the settlement and the displacement of a large portion of its residents.
As the Ministry has detailed, the demolitions have affected four housing clusters, while the rest of the buildings have received demolition orders. In this way, the entire community is exposed to a possible new forced displacement, Exteriores has warned in an official communiqué.
Along these lines, the Palestinian authorities hold the current Israeli Executive responsible for accelerating the implementation of this project in order to consolidate facts on the ground during the current period of political transition in Israel. The communiqué states that the plan seeks to fragment the West Bank, isolate East Jerusalem from its Palestinian surroundings, and jeopardize the creation of a future Palestinian State in the borders prior to June 4, 1967, with Jerusalem as its capital.
The Ministry has described these actions as a "serious violation of International Law and of International Humanitarian Law" and has underlined that they violate resolutions and international positions contrary to settlements, annexation, and forced displacement, including those expressed by the current U.S. Administration.
At the same time, it has warned that these policies could make a two-State solution unfeasible and block any horizon of peace and stability for the region. Given this scenario, the Palestinian Government has urged the international community and the Executive of the United States to assume their political and legal responsibilities, and to intervene "immediately to stop the demolition operations" in order to prevent the expulsions from spreading to other Bedouin communities in the E1 area.
Palestinian authorities have also called on Israel to abandon its plans for the expansion of settlements, as well as annexation and forced displacement measures, to prevent the creation of irreversible facts on the ground that would make it difficult to reach a negotiated solution to the conflict. The ultimate goal, they have stressed, must be an end to the Israeli occupation and the guarantee of the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people, including the establishment of an independent State with its capital in Jerusalem.
This new complaint comes after the Israeli Army announced the conclusion of the operation that began eleven days earlier in Hebron, one of the main cities in the West Bank, following the armed attack in which two of its soldiers were killed.
All this is happening in a context of an upsurge in violence by Israeli settlers in the West Bank, where 397 attacks were recorded between October 1 and 26, the highest monthly figure since the start of the statistical series in 2006, according to data from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).