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JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel announced on Sunday that it was going to suspend "several weeks" its plan to destroy a Bedouin village in the occupied West Bank, following international calls for the plan's abandonment, trying to negotiate an evacuation.
People celebrate Israel's postponement of the expulsion of the Palestinian Bedouin village from Khan al-Ahmar in the occupied West Bank on October 20, 2018. REUTERS / Mohamad Torokman
The decision was announced after a meeting of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's cabinet in charge of security.
Israel, which has long sought to rid Arab nomads of the lands lying between the Jewish settlements of Maale Adumim and Kfar Adumim, said the hamlet of Khan al-Ahmar was built without the required permits.
Palestinians, who have lost an appeal from the Israeli Supreme Court against the evacuation, claim that such documents are impossible to obtain.
The European Union and the United Nations have asked Israel to abandon the plan to demolish Khan al-Ahmar and relocate its 180 inhabitants to an area about 12 km from a dump located in the West Bank.
Foreign pressure was intensified on Wednesday when the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court said in a statement about Khan al-Ahmar that the transfer of population to the occupied territory was a war crime. Israel captured the West Bank during a 1967 war.
"The security cabinet lets it run out for several weeks for negotiations on a consensual evacuation," the Israeli statement said.
Israeli authorities are expected to send bulldozers at any time after the deadline of October 1 to allow villagers to demolish their own homes. Foreign pro-Palestinian activists flocked to the site.
In an address to reporters on Sunday, Netanyahu echoed a statement made on Saturday by a senior official in his office that the eviction had been postponed and an alternative relocation plan was under consideration, in which coordination with the Palestinian Authority.
But Netanyahu said the demolition would not be delayed indefinitely.
The Palestinian Foreign Ministry, commenting on these remarks in a statement, described the postponement as "nothing more than an Israeli attempt to calm foreign and local critics".
Palestinians claim that the destruction of Khan al-Ahmar's tents and tin huts is part of an Israeli plan to create a set of Jewish settlements that could effectively cut off East Jerusalem from the West Bank, areas occupied by Israel since 1967 war.
Most countries view Israeli-built settlements as illegal on lands captured in 1967 and claim that they are reducing and fragmenting the territory Palestinians seek for a viable state. Israel is challenging it.
Edited by Raissa Kasolowsky
