ICC reflects on investigating Israeli cleansing of Khirbet Humsah
Occupied Palestine (QNN)- Haaretz reported that the International Criminal Court prosecutors’ office is reflecting on opening an investigation into the ethnic cleansing of the Jordan Valley village of Khirbet Humsah at the behest of the Combatants for Peace organization, which termed the act a war crime.
Last month, the Israeli army demolished all houses of Khirbet Humsa and confiscated nearly 60 properties in the third demolition operation in the area in one year.
The Israeli army announced the area a restricted military zone after ethnically cleansing its inhabitants.
According to B’Tselem, nearly 2,700 people live in approximately 20 shepherding communities in areas declared by the army as firing zones or adjacent to them in the Jordan Valley.
The residents of Khirbet Humsah, who mainly work as shepherds, come from the village of As Samu in the southern West Bank. They came to the Northern Jordan Valley in the 1970s, as areas available for shepherding began to diminish or water sources were closed due to army restrictions and settlement construction. After the Nakbah in 1948 many As Samu families had their lands occupied to create ‘Israel’.
