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Israel announced that it was suspending until further notice the demolition of a Palestinian Bedouin village in the occupied West Bank.
"The intention is to give a chance to the negotiations and offers we have received from various bodies, including in recent days," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said Sunday.
Khan al-Ahmar, located northeast of Occupied East Jerusalem, is facing imminent threat of demolition in recent months.
The fate of the village has captured the attention of the international community for its long legal battle with the Israeli authorities for its survival.
Israeli authorities have set October 1 as the deadline for the dismantling of their huts after the green light given by an Israeli court last month on the pretext that it was built without a permit.
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Israeli court decides to demolish Khan al-Ahmar village |
But Palestinians say building permits are impossible to obtain, unlike the rapid expansion of Israeli settlements that are all Jewish, illegal under international law.
The location of the village between the two main Israeli settlements, Maale Adumim and Kfar Adumim, has been a thorn in the foot of the Israeli government, which wants to expand the two to build a set of settlements around East Jerusalem.
Palestinian leaders view East Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state.
The destruction of Khan al-Ahmar would also allow the Israeli government to divide the West Bank in two.
Human rights defenders said that the forcible transfer of the village's 180 inhabitants would violate international law relating to the occupied territory.
On Wednesday, the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court warned that Israel's "forced evacuation" project could be a war crime. Israel is a signatory to the Rome Statute of the ICC but has not ratified the agreement.
Residents and activists protested the planned demolition of the village for more than 100 days.
Walid Assaf, head of the wall and settlements commission, said on Saturday that villagers were fighting to cancel the demolition order, not just to freeze it, local media reported.
Last week, Israeli forces entered Khan al-Ahmar with heavy equipment and at least three bulldozers, leveling the ground for demolition. Several activists were injured and briefly detained for resisting Israeli soldiers on the scene.
The Israeli government plans to relocate IDPs in the vicinity of a wastewater treatment facility near the Dead Sea or about 12 km from their homes near the nearby Abu Dis village. from a dump.
SOURCE:
Al Jazeera and news agencies
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