NRC calls ‘Israel’ to halt attempts to forcibly transfer around 70 Palestinians in Hamsa al-Foqa

Oslo (QNN)- The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) has condemned yesterday Israel’s demolishing of all of Palestinian structures in Hamsa al-Foqa village in the northern Jordan Valley, calling it to “halt attempts to forcibly transfer around 70 Palestinians, including 35 children.”

@NRC_Norway's Chris Holt, representative of the West Bank Consortium on the ground in Humsa today, witnessed #Israel army's destruction of international aid and forcible transfer of the Palestinian community: pic.twitter.com/9BD1FBDkNM

— NRC MiddleEast (@NRC_MiddleEast) July 7, 2021

“Israeli forces have deployed military vehicles to the community declaring it a “closed military area”, while blocking access for international observers from the diplomatic and humanitarian communities,” said the NRC in a statement.

“The bulldozers destroyed an estimated eight residential shelters, four livelihood structures, and agricultural equipment.”

“This was the seventh destruction that the community has faced since November 2020, when Israeli forces carried out the single largest demolition incident in recent years.”

“Under international law, an occupying power is strictly prohibited from transferring members of the occupied population from their existing communities against their will.”

“The Israeli forces have yet again destroyed the lives of families in Humsa and are now forcing them out of their homes,” said Caroline Ort, NRC Palestine country director.

“The international community must resolutely condemn this dispossession and show that it will not tolerate these brazen breaches of international law. The Israeli authorities must immediately grant humanitarian access to the community to meet their urgent needs.”

“The demolitions are the latest in an unrelenting show of force by the Israeli authorities, who have destroyed at least 421 structures belonging to Palestinians in the first six months of 2021 alone. This marks a 30 percent rise in demolitions for the same period in 2020,” said Ort.

Hamsa al-Foqa was demolished five times by the Israeli occupation forces in February under the pretext that the area is designated for training and displaced its community with a plan to relocate them to another area.

On 3 November 2020, in the largest forced displacement incident recorded in recent years, 73 people, including 41 children were displaced. The structures demolished were residential, WASH and livestock related, of which 29 structures had been provided as humanitarian assistance.

On 1 February, Israeli occupation forces confiscated 25 structures in Hamsa al-Foqa on the alleged basis that they lacked an Israeli building permit for construction in Area C.

On 3 February, Israeli occupation forces returned to seize a further 21 structures. Sixty Palestinians have been uprooted from their homes, including 35 children. Structures demolished included 21 homes, 17 livestock shelters, and 8 water and hygiene facilities.

On 8 February, the Israeli Civil Administration, accompanied by the military, returned to the Palestinian Bedouin community and confiscated or demolished another 16 residential and animal structures. Thirteen were donor-funded and had been provided as a humanitarian response to two incidents on 1 and 3 February.

On 16 February, the occupation forces confiscated five donor-funded livelihood tents, which were being assembled to provide shelter to the community and their livestock.

Palestinians, however, say the forces training is only an excuse to remove the Palestinians in that area in order to develop it for Israel’s illegal settlement activity.

The Jordan Valley is home to approximately 60,000 Palestinians, but nearly 90 percent of the land is part of the so-called Area C, the three-fifths of the West Bank that is under complete Israeli control.

It includes closed military areas and about 50 Israeli settlement outposts housing some 12,000 colonial Israeli settlers.

Almost 800 Palestinians, including 404 minors, lost their homes in 2020.

Throughout 2019, 677 lost their homes, up from 387 in 2018 and 521 in 2017.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in a report this week that the Israeli occupation authorities demolished or confiscated 24 Palestinian-owned buildings in the occupied West Bank during the last 2 weeks (between 15-28 of June 2021) leaving 23 Palestinians, including 11 children, homeless. They also harmed 1200 others.