Khirbet al-Tabban, occupied West Bank – The signs of the mass demolition were visible everywhere in Khirbet al-Tabban: destroyed homes, scattered rubble, empty animal pens, and water tanks and essential facilities that were no longer there. A woman sits beneath a tractor trailer, trying to shelter from the heat of the sun. Beside her are some of the belongings she had managed to save from the demolition.
On Wednesday, Israeli forces arrived unannounced in this small village in the southern West Bank’s Masafer Yatta region, and demolished all of its 12 homes, as well as most of the community’s other structures, leaving about 70 people homeless. Nidal Younis, head of the Masafer Yatta Council, describes the demolition as “wiping the village off the face of the earth”. But he’s insistent that the villagers will not leave, despite repeated attempts by Israel to force Palestinians out across Masafer Yatta.
With water sources and sanitation facilities destroyed, Younis says the residents’ immediate priorities are shelter, drinking water and sanitation facilities. He warns that tents will not be sufficient against the strong winds and cold that will arrive in the next few months, especially for children, women, older people and the sick. And he’s fearful that what happened in Khirbet al-Tabban is likely to be repeated in other Masafer Yatta villages, following a 2022 Israeli court decision to allow for the displacement of the residents from the area after Israel designated it a military firing zone decades earlier.
Israel justified Wednesday’s demolition by saying the buildings were unauthorised. It is almost impossible for Palestinians in Area C of the occupied West Bank – which Masafer Yatta lies in – to get authorisation, even outside of military firing zones. Demolitions have become regular occurrences.
Nasser Mahmoud Obeid, one of the Khirbet al-Tabban villagers, says that Israeli forces ordered the residents to “get out by force” when they arrived on Wednesday morning. The order wasn’t entirely unfamiliar to Obeid – he remembers a major demolition that took place in 1999, and has had to endure years of attacks from the Israeli army and settlers since then. Obeid set to work after the Israelis left this week to clear the rubble and prepare temporary places to sleep.
He insists to Al Jazeera that the villagers will ultimately rebuild everything. Obeid says he was born in Khirbet al-Tabban in 1977, and that his father and grandfather lived there before him. We have not lost hope, and we will not.” Suad Mohammed Obeid, 48, stood among the remains of the place where she had lived for more than three decades.
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