On Sunday, Israeli soldiers bulldozed Palestinian lands east of Yatta town, south of Hebron, in the West Bank’s southern part.
Rateb Jabour, the coordinator of the National and Popular Committees Against the Annexation Wall and Colonies, said the army brought military bulldozers to level and uproot Palestinian farmlands near an illegal colonialist outpost Mitzpe Ziv.
Jabour added that the soldiers bulldozed the Palestinian lands owned by members of the Burqan family in the Birin area, northeast of Yata town.
He said the bulldozing of the land is part of a larger plan aiming at illegally annexing them to use for the expansion of existing illegal colonies.
The Israeli army has been preventing the Palestinians from entering their lands, a procedure the military uses ahead of annexing the lands and declaring them “state-owned” to be used for illegal colonialist activities and for “military purposes,”
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”.
