The Israeli occupation army’s civil administration intends to flout injunctions recently issued by the high court of justice against the evacuation of the Bedouin community of Khan al-Ahmar in east Jerusalem and demolish the hamlet in the next few days.
Last week the Israeli high court of justice has accepted a Palestinian petition and issued an injunction ordering a temporary halt to the demolition of the Bedouin Khan al-Ahmar hamlet for a few days.
Although there is a new petition filed last Monday with the same court the Israeli army’s civil administration on Tuesday informed the court that it intends to demolish the village in another few days and relocate the villagers to a site near the Abu Dis dump.
The court issued its temporary injunction on the demolition in response to the earlier petition but the civil administration persisted in building new roads in the area to facilitate the arrival of troops to carry out the forced evacuation of the local residents.
On Monday the high court issued a restraining order in response to the new petition. The order bars the civil administration from evicting the residents and requires it to respond to the petition’s arguments by July 16.
In its response on Tuesday to the first petition which was filed last week the civil administration blatantly asked the court to issue a ruling quickly since “forces are already deployed in the field” to carry out the demolition.
The civil administration told the court it was making final preparations for razing Khan al-Ahmar “within a few days.”
Last week’s petition argued that residents had submitted a detailed master plan to the civil administration earlier that week but the administration had refused to consider it. One of the civil administration’s arguments for why this petition should be rejected was that it did not include any documents demonstrating any rights to the land covered by the master plan. Therefore it said its refusal to consider the plan was justified.
In a response to these Israeli arguments another Palestinian petition was filed on Monday. The petition states that Khan al-Ahmar residents received permission from the land’s legal owners to use it.
According to the new petition Israel has wrongly claimed for many years that the Bedouin village of Khan al-Ahmar sits on state land and that is what enabled it to persuade the high court of justice not to intervene in its decision to raze the hamlet.
The new petition also affirms that this is privately-owned land legally registered in the Jordanian land registry back when Jordan controlled the West Bank.
