On Monday night, extremist paramilitary Israeli settlers installed caravans and other structures on Palestinian lands in Bani Na’im town, located east of Hebron, in the occupied West Bank’s southern part.
Media reports said paramilitary groups of colonizers established wooden and tin sheds as well as residential caravans on a plot of land that belongs to Palestinians in the town of Bani Na’im.
This attack seems to be a preliminary step towards illegally seizing the land and its surroundings to expand the Israeli colonies in the area.
It is worth noting that there are currently over 700,000 Israeli colonizers living in illegal West Bank colonies, including in and around occupied East Jerusalem.
The establishment of these colonizers violates international humanitarian law, which prohibits an occupying power from relocating its own citizens to the occupied territory or making permanent changes to the land unless it is necessary for military reasons, or the benefit of the local population.
The colonies, however, are Jewish-only, surrounded by fences and buffer zones, in addition to segregated settler-only roads that also result in further illegal annexation of Palestinian lands.
B’Tselem, an Israeli human rights organization, has emphasized this violation of international law.
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 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.”
