JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel’s top court suspended on Thursday the planned demolition of a Bedouin village in the occupied West Bank whose fate has become a focus of Palestinian protests and international concern, a lawyer for the residents said.

The Supreme Court injunction, issued a day after Israeli security forces sparked scuffles at Khan al-Ahmar by moving in bulldozers, gave the state until July 11 to respond to the villagers’ contention that they had been unfairly denied building permits, lawyer Alaa Mahajna told Reuters.

The court spokesman could not be reached for comment.

Around 180 Bedouin, raising sheep and goats, live in tin and wood shacks in Khan al-Ahmar. It is situated between a major Israeli settlement, Maale Adumim near Jerusalem, and a smaller

one to the northeast, Kfar Adumim.

Palestinians say Israeli building permits for Khan al-Ahmar have been impossible to get. Israel has long sought to clear Bedouin from the area between the two settlements, and the Supreme Court approved the demolition in May.

Removing the Bedouin, human rights groups say, would create a bigger settlement pocket near Jerusalem and make it more difficult for Palestinians to achieve territorial contiguity in the West Bank, a territory they seek along with the Gaza Strip for a future state.

Israel said it plans to relocate the residents to an area about 12 kilometers (seven miles) away, near the Palestinian village of Abu Dis.

The new site is adjacent to a landfill and rights advocates say that a forcible transfer of the residents would violate international law applying to occupied territory. The United Nations and European Union have come out against the plan.

Most countries regard settlements Israel has built in the West Bank as illegal. Israel disputes this.

Khan al-Ahmar’s residents belong to the Jahalin tribe of Bedouin who were expelled from southern Israel by the military in the 1950s.

Interviewed before the Supreme Court injunction on Thursday, Israeli Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan signaled that the Khan al-Ahmar demolition might not be imminent.

Noting the level of international opposition to the move, Erdan told the Ynet news site: “I hope this decision will be implemented in the coming weeks.” </s> , JERUSALEM, Israel, Sept 5 – Israel’s top court on Wednesday upheld an order to raze a Palestinian Bedouin village in the occupied West Bank, clearing the way for the demolition to go ahead despite international pressure.

The ruling means that in seven days authorities will be allowed to raze Khan al-Ahmar, which Israel says was built illegally.

“We reject the petitions” against the directive to demolish Khan al-Ahmar, the supreme court panel said in its decision, adding that a temporary order preventing the razing of the village during court hearings “will be cancelled in seven days from today”.

It will now be down to the authorities to decide when to carry out the demolition after the restriction order ends.

The United Nations, European Union and rights groups have opposed the razing of the village, which consists mainly of makeshift structures of tin and wood.

They argue the move will enable Israeli settlement expansion that would cut the West Bank in two, making the prospects of a Palestinian state even dimmer.

In May, Israel’s Supreme Court rejected a final appeal against its demolition after nine years of hearings before various tribunals.

The court said Khan al-Ahmar residents had rejected proposals by the state regarding the site of their relocation, and expressed hope “the dialogue” would continue.

Activists say the villagers had little alternative but to build without Israeli construction permits that are almost never issued to Palestinians in the large parts of the West Bank where Israel has full control over civil affairs.

Hussein Abu Dahook, a resident of the hamlet, said the court wanted to “expel Palestinians and replace them with Israelis”.

“We are already refugees, we were expelled 70 years ago, and they want us to move again?” he said, referring to the 1948 war that accompanied Israel’s foundation and forced many Arabs from their homes.

But while Israel has “guns and tanks,” residents of Khan al-Ahmar would “stay to the end,” Abu Dahook vowed.

Tawfiq Jabareen, one of the lawyers representing Khan al-Ahmar residents in the petitions, said the court “was following Israel’s right-wing government” in its ruling, which he said was “legally wrong”.

“It is not based on legal arguments and contradicts past supreme court rulings,” he told AFP. “This is unfortunately what the government wants, and the court doesn’t want to intervene.”

Jabareen said there were currently no understandings between the state and residents on a voluntary relocation.

“I’ve never seen someone who’s being expelled and whose house is being destroyed sitting idly by,” he said.

Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who oversees the occupation of the West Bank, praised the judges for their decision in the face of “the coordinated attack of hypocrisy by (Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas), the left and European states”.

“Nobody is above the law, nobody will keep us from acting on our sovereignty and responsibility as a state,” he said.

Khan al-Ahmar, which is east of Jerusalem, is located near several major Israeli settlements and close to a highway leading to the Dead Sea.

Diplomats from Belgium, Finland, France, Ireland, Italy, Spain, Switzerland and the European Union in July expressed their support of the village, and the UN’s humanitarian coordinator for the Palestinian territories, Jamie McGoldrick, condemned the Israeli demolition order. </s> Israel's top court on Wednesday upheld an order to raze a Palestinian Bedouin village in the occupied West Bank, after debating petitions challenging the decision.

There has been strong international pressure on Israel to reverse its plans to raze Khan al-Ahmar, which the Israeli authorities say was built illegally.

"We reject the petitions" against the directive to demolish Khan al-Ahmar, the supreme court panel said in its ruling, adding that a temporary order preventing the razing of the village during court hearings "will be cancelled within seven days from today."

It will now be down to the authorities to decide when to carry out the demolition after the restriction order ends.

The present village consists mainly of makeshift structures of tin and wood, as is generally the case with Bedouin sites.

In May, the Supreme Court rejected a final appeal against its demolition after nine years of hearings before various tribunals.

The court said Khan al-Ahmar residents had rejected proposals by the state regarding the site of their relocation, and expressed hope "the dialogue" would continue.

Activists say the villagers had little alternative but to build without Israeli construction permits that are almost never issued to Palestinians in the large parts of the West Bank where Israel has full control over civil affairs.

Tawfiq Jabareen, one of the lawyers representing Khan al-Ahmar residents in the petitions, said the court "was following Israel's rightwing government" in its ruling, which he said was "legally wrong".

"It is not based on legal arguments and contradicts past supreme court rulings," he told AFP. "This is unfortunately what the government wants, and the court doesn't want to intervene."

Jabareen said there were currently no understandings between the state and residents on a voluntary relocation.

"I’ve never seen someone who’s being expelled and whose house is being destroyed sitting idly by," he said.

Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who oversees the occupation of the West Bank, praised the judges for their decision in the face of "the coordinated attack of hypocrisy by (Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas), the left and European states."

"Nobody is above the law, nobody will keep us from acting on our sovereignty and responsibility as a state," he said. </s> Israeli forces have assaulted dozens of Palestinians protesting the demolition of a Bedouin village near occupied East Jerusalem and the forcible transfer of the entire community.

According to the Palestinian Red Crescent, at least 35 Palestinians were wounded, including four who were hospitalised, during the events which took place on Wednesday at the Khan al-Ahmar village.

Videos taken by witnesses and circulated online showed Israeli forces beating and attempting to arrest men, women and children. In one video, Israeli forces were seen violently dragging a Palestinian woman on the ground and pulling off her headscarf.

Israeli forces arrived to the scene with heavy equipment and at least one bulldozer early on Wednesday, after a long legal battle between the community’s close to 180 residents and the Israeli Supreme Court.

Khan al-Ahmar falls in Area C of the occupied West Bank - under total Israeli administrative and military control.

While the Israeli court has sanctioned the demolition of the village because it was built without the necessary construction permit, Israeli authorities rarely, if ever, approve construction permits in Area C due to the expansion of illegal Jewish-only Israeli housing settlements there.

United Nations figures show that Israeli authorities have approved just 1.5 percent of all permit requests by Palestinians between 2010 and 2014.

The Jahalin Bedouin community that lives in Khan al-Ahmar set up camp in the area as early as 1953, long before two Jewish-only settlements were built around it.

The community believes they are being forcibly removed to allow Israel to expand its settlements on their land. </s> JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel’s top court cleared the way on Wednesday for the demolition of a Bedouin village in the occupied West Bank whose fate has become a focus of Palestinian protests and international concern.

The Supreme Court, in a decision released by a court spokesman, rejected petitions against the demolition of Khan al-Ahmar and said a temporary injunction that had put a hold on the move would lapse in a week. </s> Israeli police scuffled with activists protesting the planned demolition of a Bedouin hamlet in the West Bank on Wednesday amid international opposition to the razing of the site.

Police said 11 protesters were arrested during the clashes, while the Palestinian Red Crescent said 35 protesters were injured during the demonstration at Khan al-Ahmar, a village east of Jerusalem.

"This is a vicious, barbaric attack on peaceful demonstrators and they are trying to demolish Khan Al-Ahmar," Mustafa Barghouti, a Palestinian legislator, said.

Israel says the structures that make up the Khan al-Ahmar encampment were illegally built and pose a threat to residents because of their proximity to a highway.

Police could be seen dragging a handcuffed woman and pushing a Bedouin man. A construction vehicle flattened earth near the site.

The village outside the Kfar Adumim settlement, home to 181 Palestinian Bedouins, is set to be demolished at an unknown date after Israel's Supreme Court approved the move in May after years of legal battles.

Israel agreed to resettle the residents in an area some 12 kilometers (7 miles) away. Israel captured the territory in the 1967 Mideast war.

The West Bank's Arab Bedouin are a small, impoverished minority among the broader Palestinian population. Like many other Bedouin encampments, residents of Khan al-Ahmar live in corrugated shacks or tents, often without electricity or running water, and raise livestock.

Critics say it is nearly impossible to get a building permit from Israel and that the village's demolition and the removal of its residents is a ploy to clear the way for new Israeli settlements.

The village is located in the 60 percent of the West Bank known as Area C, which remains under exclusive Israeli control and is home to dozens of Israeli settlements. Israel places severe restrictions on Palestinian development there and home demolitions are not unusual.

As part of interim peace deals in the 1990s, the West Bank was carved up into autonomous and semi-autonomous Palestinian areas, known as Areas A and B, and Area C, which is home to some 400,000 Israeli settlers.

The Palestinians say that Area C, home to an estimated 150,000 to 200,000 Palestinians, is crucial to the economic development of their future state.

The U.N.'s main human rights body on Tuesday called on Israel to abandon the demolition plans as it violated international law. </s> KHAN AL-AHMAR, West Bank (Reuters) - Palestinian protests broke out on Wednesday at a Bedouin village in the occupied West Bank facing Israeli demolition in what rights groups have condemned as a bid to expand Jewish settlement.

Israel moved three bulldozers to the village, Khan al-Ahmar, earlier in the day though demolition had yet to begin, after the military left a land confiscation notice there on Tuesday.

Around 180 Bedouin, raising sheep and goats, live in tin and wood shacks in Khan al-Ahmar. It is situated between a major Israeli settlement, Maale Adumim near Jerusalem, and a smaller one to the northeast, Kfar Adumim.

Khan al-Ahmar was built without Israeli permits, which Palestinians say are impossible to obtain. Israel has long sought to clear Bedouin from the area between the two settlements, and the Supreme Court approved the demolition in May.

Removing the Bedouin, human rights groups say, would create a bigger settlement pocket near Jerusalem and make it more difficult for Palestinians to achieve territorial contiguity in the West Bank, a territory they seek along with the Gaza Strip for a future state.

At Khan al-Ahmar, several dozen Palestinians scuffled with Israeli police, who punched several of the men they dragged away. A Palestinian ambulance service said 35 protesters were hurt and four of them were taken to hospital. Police said two people were arrested.

“I was born here and will not move anywhere else,” said Feisal Abu Dahok, 45. “If they destroy the village, we will build it again here or nearby.”

Israel said it plans to relocate the residents to an area about 12 kilometers (seven miles) away, near the Palestinian village of Abu Dis.

The new site is adjacent to a landfill and rights advocates say that a forcible transfer of the residents would violate international law applying to occupied territory.

At a news briefing in Geneva on Tuesday, a spokeswoman for the U.N. human rights office expressed concern at reports of impending demolition.

“For more than a decade people in the Khan al-Ahmar community ... have resisted efforts to move them to make way for settlement expansion,” the spokeswoman, Liz Throssell, said.

Slideshow (7 Images)

She said “international humanitarian law prohibits the destruction or confiscation of private property by the occupying power”, a reference to Israel, which captured the West Bank in the 1967 Middle East war.

Most countries regard settlements Israel has built in the West Bank as illegal. Israel disputes this.

Khan al-Ahmar’s residents belong to the Jahalin tribe of Bedouin who were expelled from southern Israel by the military in the 1950s. </s> Image copyright Reuters Image caption Khan al-Ahmar was established in the 1950s by members of a tribe from the Negev desert

Israel's Supreme Court has rejected appeals against the demolition of a Bedouin village in the occupied West Bank whose fate has been a subject of international concern.

Judges upheld an order to raze Khan al-Ahmar, where about 180 people live in shacks between two Jewish settlements.

Israel's government says the structures were built illegally, but Palestinians say permits are impossible to obtain.

An injunction against the demolition will expire within seven days.

The United Nations has called on Israel to allow the Bedouin to remain on the land, saying such demolitions are against international law.

Image copyright Reuters Image caption Israel's government says the structures were built illegally on state-owned land

Khan al-Ahmar, which is 8km (5 miles) east of Jerusalem, was established in the early 1950s by members of a semi-nomadic tribe the UN says was displaced from the Negev desert in southern Israel.

Israel did not recognise Khan al-Ahmar as a residential area after it occupied the West Bank during the 1967 Middle East war, and refused to connect the community to utilities like water and electricity.

Since 2009, residents have been fighting demolition orders issued for the wooden and corrugated iron shacks in which they live, as well as a clinic, mosque and an Italian-funded primary school.

The Israeli government said the structures were built on state-owned land without permits from the Israeli military which, under the 1993 Oslo Accords, has exclusive control over construction in the 60% of the West Bank known as "Area C".

Palestinians complain that the Israeli military refuses the vast majority of Palestinian building requests and say they are left with little option except to build without permission.

In May, the Supreme Court rejected petitions to prevent the demolitions at Khan al-Ahmar and the relocation of its residents to a site designated by the Israeli government near the Palestinian town of Abu Dis.

After the Israeli military began preparations for the demolitions in July residents filed new petitions to the Supreme Court , including one asking for the original verdict to be overturned and another for the eviction to be delayed until they could find somewhere else to live.

Image copyright Reuters Image caption Khan al-Ahmar residents saw their appeals rejected

Israeli Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman congratulated the court on Wednesday's ruling upholding the demolition order, which he said had come despite "the orchestrated hypocrisy of Abu Mazen [Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas], the Left and European states".

"Nobody is above the law, nobody will keep us from acting on our sovereignty and responsibility as a state," he added.

The head of the Palestine Liberation Organisation's human rights body, Ahmed al-Tamimi, warned Israel against proceeding with the demolition, calling it a "flagrant challenge to the whole world and a serious violation of the international humanitarian law and human rights".

The UN has previously warned that international humanitarian law requires an occupying power to protect the population of the territory that it occupies , ensure its welfare and wellbeing, as well as the respect for its human rights.

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Any destruction of property by the occupying power is prohibited, except when rendered absolutely necessary by military operations, the UN says. The extensive demolition of property is a grave breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention and may amount to a war crime, it adds.

Other than for the security of the population or imperative military reasons, international humanitarian law also prohibits the transfer of the population of an occupied territory without the genuinely and fully informed consent of the affected people, according to the UN.

Khan al-Ahmar is one of 18 Bedouin communities the UN considers being at risk of forcible transfer because they are located in or next to an area near East Jerusalem slated by Israel for Jewish settlement construction. The settlements are considered illegal under international law, though Israel disputes this. </s> Israel's top court cleared the way on Wednesday for the demolition of a Bedouin village in the occupied West Bank whose fate has become a focus of Palestinian protests and international concern.

The Supreme Court, in a decision released by a court spokesman, rejected petitions against the demolition of Khan al-Ahmar and said a temporary injunction that had put a hold on the move would lapse in a week.

Around 180 Bedouin, raising sheep and goats, live in tin and wood shacks in Khan al-Ahmar. It is situated outside Jerusalem between two Israeli settlements.

Israel said it plans to relocate the residents to an area about 12 km (seven miles) away, near the Palestinian village of Abu Dis.

But the new site is adjacent to a landfill, and rights advocates say that a forcible transfer of the residents would violate international law applying to occupied territory.

Most countries consider settlements built by Israel on land it captured in the 1967 Middle East War as illegal, and an obstacle to peace. They say they reduce and fragment the territory Palestinians seek for a viable state in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip.
Clashes break out between Israeli security forces and Bedouin residents in Khan al-Ahmar, West Bank, as Israeli bulldozers prepare to demolish the village. The Supreme Court of Israel ruled that its residents could be evicted on May 24, while such relocation is considered illegal under international humanitarian law.