After a spasm of violence last week -- including the deadliest Israeli raid in the West Bank for two decades and the deadliest Palestinian attack on civilians in Jerusalem since 2008 -- Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded Saturday with a vow to strengthen Jewish settlements in the Israeli-controlled part of the West Bank, where little land is allocated to Palestinians.
The competition for land is playing out in the southern Hebron hills -- where the Supreme Court has ordered the expulsion of a thousand Palestinians in an area known as Masafer Yatta -- and across the territory.
"They say the bulldozers will come tomorrow, next month, next year," said Ali, 40, from her metal-topped shed, where she can see the red-roofed homes of the fast-growing Kfar Adumim settlement. "Our life is frozen." At a Cabinet meeting last week, Israel's national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, demanded that Khan al-Ahmar be demolished "just as the defense minister chose to destroy a Jewish outpost" built illegally in the West Bank.
Bedouins have made Khan al-Ahmar their home since at least the 1970s, though some, like Ali and Abu Khamis, say their parents lived there earlier. Israel has offered to resettle the villagers at another site several miles away. Palestinians fear Israel will use the strategic strip of land to slice Jerusalem off from Palestinian cities, making a future Palestinian state non-viable.
The zone covers 60% of the West Bank designated as being under full Israeli control. This is in contrast to the remaining areas, including Palestinian population centers, where the Palestinian autonomy government exercises civil and partial security control.It was an interim agreement, meant to last five years pending a final peace deal.
Netanyahu's coalition partners have a radically different vision for Area C than the one drawn up in Oslo. They hope to boost the settler population, eliminate Palestinian construction and even annex the territory. The Cabinet announced a freeze on Palestinian building there as part of punitive measures against the PA last month.
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