The Israeli occupation army on Tuesday evening notified more than 10 families living in ar-Ras al-Ahmar hamlet in Tubas province to leave their homes for many hours during three days next week saying its troops would conduct usual military drills in their area
Local activist Aref Daraghmeh said the families would have to leave from nine o’clock in the morning to five o’clock in the evening on Tuesday Wednesday and Thursday next week.
Daraghmeh added that the Israeli army had embarked for days on setting up shelters fortifications and paths near and on cultivated plots of land and deploying heavy military vehicles in the area.
The villagers were forced to leave their homes during two days for the same purpose in mid-November.
Ras al-Ahmar is one of the most prominent Bedouin hamlets whose residents suffer greatly from Israel’s military drills and activities
During previous military exercises the Israeli army had always caused extensive damage to crops and pastures by driving over them and destroyed roads used by the villagers.
Those drills also led the residents to stay without adequate shelter in severe weather conditions.
Israel treats the Bedouin residents in Tubas and the Jordan Valley as unwanted people and uses their areas as military training fields in order to force them to leave. As the occupying power in the West Bank Israel must not use the territories under its occupation for military purposes such as training for war or routine military drills. Displacing residents to make way for military training violates the international humanitarian law.
Additionally training grounds are selectively chosen. Training never takes place close to settlements in these areas so as not to put settlers in danger or disturb their lives. Settlers have never been forced to vacate their homes to allow the army to conduct such exercises.
No Israeli official has ever explained how training grounds are chosen but the apparent selectiveness uncovers the motivation behind it which is dispossession and displacement.
