Israeli occupation forces bulldozed hundreds of dunams of Palestinian agricultural land on Tuesday in the town of Beit Ummar, north of Hebron in the occupied West Bank’s southern part.
Local sources said Israeli bulldozers carried out extensive destruction in the Jabal Wardan area east of the town, uprooting and damaging large tracts of land planted with grapevines and almond trees.
Media activist Mohammad Awad said the bulldozed lands belong to the Abu Ayyash, Jahshan, and Al‑Alami families and were cultivated with approximately 750 grape and almond trees.
He added that the destruction was carried out to expand the illegal Israeli colony of “Karmei Tzur” and additional newly established colonial outposts placed on privately owned Palestinian land.
Awad noted that the bulldozing is part of a broader campaign by Israeli forces and illegal paramilitary colonizers to seize agricultural areas around Beit Ummar, impose new colonial facts on the ground, and undermine the livelihoods of Palestinian farmers in the region.
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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.
