A diplomatic delegation of consuls and ambassadors from the European Union and Australia today visited Masafer Yatta, south of Hebron, to review the challenges faced by residents as a result of the Israeli occupation’s policy and continued attacks against them and their property.
Head of the Masafer Yatta Village Council, Nidal Abu Younes, said the delegation, which was received by the Fatah movement in Yatta as well as the Masafer village councils, made a field tour and visited the Jinba School, which is threatened with demolition by Israeli military orders.
Abu Younis briefed the delegation on the school, which benefits students in a number of nearby communities, explaining that the occupation, as part of its latest decisions to forcibly expel residents in Masafer Yatta area, has declared the jinba village a closed military zone and threatened to impose a series of penalties against anyone present in the village on security pretexts, to force residents to leave for the benefit of settlement and military camps.
Meanwhile, members of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), provided an explanation of the reality of life in Masafer Yatta, and statistics on the violations and crimes of the Israeli occupation monitored by its staff.
For his part, Fouad Amour, the coordinator of the Protection and Resilience Committees in Masafer Yatta, called on the international community and diplomatic missions to continuously visit the Masafer to learn about the continuing suffering of the citizens, and to put pressure on the occupation government to stop the demolition orders that affected houses of worship and schools.
The delegation was also briefed on the suffering of the citizens of the village of Al-Halawa in Masafer Yatta, where the occupation is building a 28-kilometer-long wall, starting from the village and reaching Khirbet al-Haqiqah, in the far south, separating a number of residential communities from each other.
Israel is planning to destroy at least 12 hamlets in Masafer Yatta and displace more than 1000 of their Palestinian residents after the Israeli High Court gave the army the go-ahead with the demolition.
Source: Palestine News & Information Agency