Israeli occupation forces demolished dozens of industrial and commercial structures in the al‑Mashtal area of al‑‘Ezariya, southeast of occupied Jerusalem in the West Bank, on Monday evening, despite an active court injunction prohibiting demolition until mid‑May.
Media and local sources estimate that at least 20 workshops and commercial facilities have already been destroyed, with bulldozers continuing the demolition campaign into the night as part of a broader plan linked to Israel’s settlement‑expansion project in the “E1” area.
In a brief statement, the Jerusalem Governorate confirmed that the demolitions are being carried out in violation of a valid injunction obtained by residents, which explicitly bars the removal of the structures until mid‑May.
Soldiers accompanied the bulldozers, fired stun grenades and tear‑gas canisters at residents, and obstructed traffic in the area.
Earlier this week, Israeli authorities verbally ordered around 50 business owners to empty their shops and industrial units in al‑Mashtal, located at the town’s main entrance, in preparation for enforcing demolition orders originally issued in August 2025.
According to available data, the targeted structures lie within the footprint of Israel’s colonial expansion scheme known as “Fabric of Life,” a project tied to the larger annexation plan for the E1 zone.
The plan seeks to create full territorial continuity between the illegal colony of Ma’ale Adumim and occupied Jerusalem, effectively severing the northern West Bank from the south and annexing roughly 3% of West Bank land into the so‑called “Greater Jerusalem” project.
|Colonizers Destroy Agricultural Property, Seize Land in West Bank|
The project carries severe implications for Palestinian communities, entrenching an apartheid‑style road system in which Palestinians would be barred from using Highway 1 and forced into an underground tunnel near the Israeli military roadblock at az‑Za‘im, while the surface road remains exclusively for Israeli colonizers.
The plan would also isolate the communities of Jabal al‑Baba, Wadi al‑Jamal, and al‑‘Ezariya, and threatens the demolition and displacement of dozens of additional structures that recently received at least 43 new demolition notices to clear space for the expansion.
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, prohibit the destruction of civilian property and classify pillage as a war crime.
