Illegal Israeli paramilitary colonizers launched coordinated assaults Wednesday on Palestinian homes and property in the at-Tiran neighborhood, south of Hebron, in the southern part of the occupied West Bank.
The attacks included obstruction of school access, destruction of civilian infrastructure, and aggressive incursions near livestock shelters, part of a broader campaign of intimidation and forced displacement.
Local resident Bassam al-Za’arir stated that the colonizers used agricultural machinery, including tractors, to damage residential structures and conducted provocative patrols around civilian homes.
Drones emitting loud, disruptive noises were flown directly over sheep pens, causing panic and dispersal among the animals.
Za’arir added that the paramilitary colonizers routinely encroach on the area, especially at night, blasting music and sounding horns to terrorize women and children.
Their presence has become a daily threat to the community’s safety and psychological well-being.
Activist Akram Abu Sharkh reported that a group of colonizers deliberately blocked the only access road to the local gathering point using their livestock, preventing students from reaching their schools and forcing them to return home.
He emphasized that residents are subjected to a de facto siege, barred from leaving their homes, grazing their animals, or receiving visitors. These tactics aim to isolate and pressure families into abandoning their land.
In recent weeks, colonizers have intensified their assaults, posing an existential threat to the community. Many families have been forced to evacuate women and children to safer areas, leaving only adult men behind to defend their homes and farmland.
Meanwhile, colonizers continue carving a new settler road across Palestinian-owned land, starting from the bypass road near the entrance to Khirbet Iqawis east of Yatta, and extending toward the summit of Tel Ma’in—a historic hilltop now under near-daily threat of seizure.
This escalation reflects a systematic strategy of territorial expansion and civilian displacement, carried out with impunity under military protection.
All of Israel’s colonies in the occupied West Bank, including those in and around occupied East Jerusalem, are illegal under International Law, the Fourth Geneva Convention in addition to various United Nations and Security Council resolutions. They also constitute war crimes under International Law.
Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits collective punishment and acts of terror against civilian populations.
Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention states: “The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.” It also prohibits the “individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory”.
Articles 53 and 147, which prohibit the destruction of civilian property and classify pillage as a war crime.
