Photo: ICAHD - Khan al-Ahmar, located off of Highway 1 between Jerusalem and Jericho
Khan al-Ahmar, the Palestinian Bedouin village, home to at least 180 people is under threat of imminent demolition. On Sunday, 22nd January, Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir listed the village amongst those to be demolished in a document he submitted to the Cabinet. In September 2018, the Israeli Supreme Court ordered its demolition, but it is believed that international outcry pressurized the Israeli government to delay the demolition. The Israeli Supreme Court has given the government until 1st February to explain why it has not been demolished to date and to submit a plan. With Ben-Gvir in his new governmental role, he is pushing for the demolition to happen imminently.
Khan al-Ahmar is located a few miles east of Jerusalem between the two major illegal Israeli settlements of Maale Adumim and Kfar Adumim. It is one of the few remaining Palestinian communities within the E1 area which Israel wants cleared for settlement expansion hence its need to demolish Khan al-Ahmar and forcibly displace the residents, a war crime under international law. Israel argues that it can carry out the demolitions because the village was built without a permit, something which is virtually impossible for Palestinians living in Area C to be granted with not more than 1% of applications approved annually.
Further settlement expansion in E-1 will cut the West Bank in half so that there is no contiguity between the north and the south. For years, even the US opposed this plan on the grounds that it would destroy the two-state solution.
Almost daily Israeli authorities demolish Palestinian homes, and these are reported on ICAHD’s social media platforms. Whole communities within Masafer Yatta (in the South Hebron Hills) continue under imminent threat of demolition and displacement which will leave over a thousand Palestinians homeless. This is all part of the Zionists’ settler colonial plan as it removes the indigenous Palestinian population and replaces it with a Jewish population.