LETTER FROM JERUSALEM
A cavalcade of diplomats engages, Monday, October 19, in the hills of southern Hebron. They are clearly delighted to end their isolation, the day after the partial lifting of the confinement imposed on Israel for a month. Thirty-five SUVs, carrying seventeen European heads of mission, some small national flags flying in the wind, as well as journalists, throw up the dust of a bad road, in a backdrop of yellow and dry earth where limestone is exposed, lunar, breathtaking.
The Palestinians call these places Masafer Yatta, and the Israeli army the “shooting range 918”, decreed a military training zone since the 1980s. A dozen villages of Palestinian farmers and herders are scattered there over nearly 3 000 hectares. Seven of these hamlets are subject to eviction proceedings before the Israeli justice system, which has dragged on since the 1990s, and which must soon come to an end: a decision is expected before July 2021, at the latest.
In order to facilitate the training of the army, the Israeli state has proposed since March 2018 to expel 700 to 1,000 Palestinian peasants for fifteen weeks every six months, i.e. half of the year. Without guaranteeing the continuity of these periods: it could be a day here, a week there. The villagers oppose it, arguing that they live on private land or whose ownership has been undetermined for decades, and that they have nowhere to go.
Armored vehicles in the wheat fields
Such an expulsion, even ordered half-time, would be an exceptional fact. On Monday, Hagai El-Ad, director of the Israeli NGO B’Tselem, reminded diplomats that they still have influence in such battles. Despite the criticism and the heavy weariness of this conflict. “This place is your Khan Al-Ahmar! “, he urged them, in memory of the mobilization of their predecessors, who had prevented, in 2018, the expulsion of Bedouins from other hills. The Israeli state had finally given up on annexing this strategic zone, the last piece of land linking the north and the south of the Palestinian territories, east of Jerusalem.
In Masafer Yatta, wearing blue masks in the colors of the European Union, in walking boots or pumps, diplomats are cautious: they refuse for the time being to draw a parallel with Khan Al-Ahmar. In this massive displacement, which is worth a declaration in itself, the French consul, René Troccaz, sees only“A useful field visit, like many others”, at the initiative of Israeli human rights organizations. It is the return to everyday life of the occupation, after Israel finally postponed its threats to annex part of the West Bank until the summer.
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