Palestinians in occupied West Bank live with uncertainty

Uncertainty overshadows Masafer Yatta, a semidesert region in the south of the Israeli-occupied West Bank that is home to several Palestinian hamlets. In May 2022, Israel's Supreme Court issued a final ruling that could lead to the eviction of approximately 1,000 Palestinian residents who live in the rural area, which is also known as Firing Zone 918 — an Israeli army training ground.

In recent weeks, local media, residents and Israeli human rights groups have reported on imminent evictions in Masafer Yatta.

"Every day, they put more and more pressure on us with checkpoints here and there. Basically, they want us to leave," said 35-year-old Jaber Dababseh, a Palestinian resident from the village of Khallet Athaba.

The father of five, who has been living with the threat of eviction for many years, added that he would never leave the area in the South Hebron Hills that he calls home.

The legal battle over Masafer Yatta has been ongoing for over 20 years — in Israeli courts and on the ground.

The Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories, the Israeli military body that administers civil affairs in the area, has not commented on any such imminent plans. However, in a statement given to DW in January, it said that the "firing zone 918 is defined as a closed military area and serves for the training of IDF [Israel Defense Forces] soldiers. Accordingly, it is a criminal offense and a danger to human life to enter there without official IDF approval."

Several demolitions in recent years

The Israeli military has carried out a number of demolitions in the area in recent years. Last November, for example, the military tore down a small primary school not long after it had been erected. The single-story structure in Khirbet a-Safai al-Foqa, which was built with the help of donations, was used by around20 schoolchildren from nearby communities.

The Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories subsequently released a statement saying it had "carried out enforcement steps against a structure that was built illegally in Firing Zone 918 in the South Hebron Hills," adding that "entry into it without a permit constitutes a violation of the law and endangers human life."

Soon after the demolition, villagers erected a makeshift tent over the debris. When DW visited in late November 2022, Palestinian first graders were learning the English alphabet in one corner of the tent. On the other side, Ashraf Shreteh was teaching math to three eager students perched over two tables.

"We were very optimistic when we established this school.There is no choice but to rebuild it, but the mood here is pessimistic at times," he told DW. 

"We just want our kids to have a normal life, we want them to work hard, to study well and we want them to be the best," the head of the school, Issa Mahamreh, told DW in November.

Just a few weeks later, the makeshift tent serving as the school was also destroyed.

Who has the right to the land?

Masafer Yatta is located in the so-called Area C, which makes up more than 60% of the Israeli-occupied West Bank. It is under full Israeli control. Most houses in the area, where winters are cold and summers are very hot, are simple structures with corrugated roofs and adjoining pens for livestock.

In May 2022, Israel's Supreme Court ruled that the residents of eight villages of Masafer Yatta were unable to prove their residence in the area before the closed military zone known as Firing Zone 918 was declared back in 1980. It also said villagers had rejected a compromise that would have allowed them to enter the area during certain, restricted times of the year.

Israeli settlements, which are considered illegal under international law, have expanded on several hills over the years. In recent weeks, various countries including Germany and the United States, have again condemned settlement plans. 

One of the outposts in the area, Avigail — which was previously considered illegal under Israeli law — is part of a group of nine settlements in the occupied West Bank, for which Israel's new far-right government recently granted retroactive authorization.

The Palestinian families, many of whom earn a living from traditional agriculture and from sheep and goat herding, have said they were living in the area long before Israel occupied the West Bank in the Six-Day War of 1967. 

Naomi Linder Kahn from Regavim, a pro-Israeli settlement organization monitoring the area, disagrees with the villagers. "I think, first of all, these villages shouldn't be there. The villages themselves are a fiction. They're a method of taking over land and they shouldn't be there," she told DW. "And second of all, a lot of this is provocation that is agitated by foreign anarchists that come here to do all sorts of things to provoke the Jewish communities that have been there for decades legally."

Access to villages for Palestinians is increasingly difficult

Since the Supreme Court ruling in May 2022, Israeli and foreign activists providing support to Palestinian communities say they have been stopped at mobile military checkpoints between the villages.

Israeli activists sometimes accompany Palestinian shepherds in order to shield them from potential settler violence as they take their sheep to graze. But reaching the communities in Masafer Yatta has become harder, they say, claiming it's a way of indirectly pushing residents out.

"We are not going to see people put on trucks and be forced to be transferred in that way because of the optics," said Dror Sadot, a spokesperson for the Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem. "But what we are seeing right now — and what we are expecting to see — is multiple demolitions and checkpoints, basically making their lives unbearable to live in this area in order for them to leave."

'They don't want us to stay or to be here'

Israel rarely, if at all, issues building permits to Palestinians residents in the Masafer Yatta area. As a result, several residents and shepherds have repurposed some of the many caves in this hilly landscape to serve as living quarters, as they did in ancient times.

Jaber Dababseh from the village of Khallet Athaba sits in his carefully terraced garden, lined with young trees. It stands out in the arid landscape.

His house has been demolished five times already, as has that of his brother, he said. Some parts of the kitchen remain standing, and a tent serves as his living room.

Like most of his neighbors, Dababseh, who sometimes works as a construction worker, does not have a building permit. He has prepared a nearby cave to live in — in case the rest of his house is knocked down.

"Every time the civil administration comes with a different pretext. They say, 'go and get the permits'," he told DW. "I tried more than once to get permission. They don't want us to stay or to be here."

Dababseh said he hoped for more international pressure. European Union representatives have visited the area over the past year, condemning demolitions and further changes.

Last year, letters by some members of the US Congress urged US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to publicly condemn the forced transfer of Palestinian residents, calling it a "grave breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention." 

The convention provides protection for civilians of territories invaded or occupied by foreign military forces.

Edited by: Anne Thomas, Kate Hairsine, Ben Knight