Masafer Yatta

Masafer Yatta is the collective name for a cluster of small communities in the arid hills south-east of Yatta, at the far southern edge of the West Bank. Their inhabitants are shepherds and dryland farmers who have lived, in part, in caves — cool in summer, warm in winter — moving with the seasons between the khirbet, the hamlets, and grazing land. In the 1980s the Israeli military declared the area a closed live-fire training zone, Firing Zone 918. Today about 215 Palestinian households remain inside it, some 1,150 people, of whom 569 are children.

In 1999 the government issued eviction orders against about 700 residents for “illegally living in a firing zone,” and the army forcibly removed most of them, destroying or confiscating their homes and property — in contradiction of an existing military order stating that the firing-zone restrictions would not apply to people already living there. Months later the High Court of Justice granted an interim injunction allowing most residents to return pending a final ruling. That ruling took twenty-two years to arrive, and in the meantime the eviction orders hung over every structure in the area.

The state’s argument hardened over time. In a 2012 petition the military reasserted its right to remove eight of the thirteen communities, offering them access to their own land for cultivation and grazing only at weekends and on Jewish holidays. At a hearing in August 2020 the authorities argued that the communities had not been permanent residents when the firing zone was declared and therefore had no right to remain. A month earlier, residents had submitted to the court the transcript of a 1981 ministerial meeting in which the then minister of agriculture instructed the army to create training zones in the area precisely in order to displace its Palestinian inhabitants.

On 4 May 2022 the High Court ruled that there was no legal barrier to the expulsion. What followed was a campaign of pressure documented in detail by the UN: a seizure order for a military patrol road two weeks later; demolitions at Khirbet al-Fakhiet and Mirkez on 11 May and 1 June, the third demolition in under a year for some families; demolition orders on 7 June for every home and almost every livelihood structure in Khirbet at-Tabban. Alongside the army, settler outposts established in and around the firing zone have made grazing and water access increasingly dangerous.

Forcible transfer of protected persons within occupied territory is prohibited by the Fourth Geneva Convention. In July 2024 the International Court of Justice, in its advisory opinion on Israel’s policies and practices in the occupied Palestinian territory, found the occupation and its associated settlement, land and displacement policies unlawful and called for them to be brought to an end. On the ground in Masafer Yatta the demolitions have continued.

Sources

• Fact sheet: Masafer Yatta communities at risk of forcible transfer, June 2022 — UN OCHA occupied Palestinian territory
• Legal Consequences arising from the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem — International Court of Justice, Advisory Opinion of 19 July 2024