(C) Daily Kos
This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .
Israel razes Palestinian West Bank village [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-05-14
On May 5, 2025, Israeli demolition forces conducted their largest demolition of Palestinian homes to date.
In the early morning hours of May 5th, two large excavators and two bulldozers rolled over the hills of Masafer Yatta and into the village of Khalet a-Daba’. In under two hours, Israeli military forces demolished nine houses, six residential caves, 11 bathrooms, ten water tanks, seven water cisterns, four animal shelters, an electricity room, the majority of the village’s solar panels, and the community center. By the time the army left, only four structures remained; 90% of the village was in ruins. As the head of the settler South Hebron Hills Regional Council, Eliram Azulay, wrote on Facebook the following day, the “historic demolitions” are part of an attempt to achieve Israeli “sovereignty in the South Hebron Hills”—an intentional strategy to consolidate Israeli control over the West Bank by removing Palestinians from the rural regions known as Area C and annexing the territory to Israel.
This report is the latest in a series of reports of Israeli oppression of Palestinians in the West Bank. Ongoing and escalating movements against Palestinians demonstrate an Israeli determination to remove Palestinians from their ancestral West Bank homes, as they are doing in Gaza. Video and accounts below originate from on the ground eyewitnesses with Veterans for Peace and the Center for Jewish Nonviolence. Here is a video of the remains of Khalet a-Daba’.
Israel Demolished the village of Khalet a-Daba' in Masafer Yatta, on the West Bank. This is an escalation beyond anything we have seen in recent times. Can you help publicize this?
There is not even an excuse about "Hamas", or revenge, or anything. This is the most naked manifestation of Israel's genocidal drive: to remove Palestinians from their land and to take it over.
The village of Khalat a-Daba' was home to 107 residents prior to its effective destruction by Israeli bulldozers accompanied by armed forces. In the buildup towards practical elimination of the village today, Israeli armed forces, Civil Administration, and settler militias have already attacked its residents and demolished homes and structures under various pretexts, especially following the Israeli High Court allowing the designation of the area, which includes 12 villages, as a closed military zone by rejecting of the petition against the designation in 2022.
Residents condemn the demolition as a forced transfer of protected persons under International Humanitarian Law that should be viewed as part of the ongoing ethnic cleansing waged by Israel in the West Bank in conjunction with the official Israeli policy of promoting the forced removal of the Palestinian population of the Gaza Strip.
This is one of the villages that was featured in the movie No Other Land.
More background:
Some 30,000 dunams (~7,400 acres) of the Masafer Yatta region, in which Khalat a-Daba' is located, was declared by Israel as a closed military firing zone at the beginning of the 1980s. At the time of the declaration, dozens of families in 12 small villages have lived in natural or rock-cut caves since before Israel occupied the West Bank. For decades, farming and shepherding have served as residents' main source of income. A petition against the declaration was filed in 2000 and was deliberated in the Israeli High Court for over two decades. The case was eventually rejected by the court in 2022, isolating the residents and condemning them to a life of permanent lack of security under the threat of demolition and forced removal.
While homes in Khalat a-Daba’ were demolished several times since 2022, with the latest previous demolition taking place in February this year, Israeli settlements have expanded unhindered deep into the area Israel designated as a firing zone. New and existing Israeli settlements surrounding Khalat a-Daba' further threaten the village with even greater isolation through efforts to cut off the road leading to other villages in the firing zone and around it. Such institutionalized and institutionally-enabled steps and developments, also supported by official Knesset protocols, lead to the inevitable conclusion that the designation is yet another tool of ethnic cleansing used by Israel in the effort to expel Palestinians and expand its settlement project at the expanse of the Palestinian residents.
Other than the constant demolitions, Khalat a-Daba’ has suffered from a rise in violent attacks since October 2023. Settlers from the nearby outposts have prevented Palestinians from accessing their agricultural lands and attacked the villages several times. These attacks led to injuries among the residents and damage to property, including cars smashed with stones and a burning of one of the houses.
[END]
---
[1] Url:
https://www.dailykos.com/story/2025/5/14/2322301/-Israel-razes-Palestinian-West-Bank-village
Published and (C) by Daily Kos
Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified.
via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/
