Over a thousand Palestinians are under “critical” threat of forcible transfer by Israel after officials effectively ordered a large swath of Masafer Yatta to be turned into a live-fire training zone last week, a coalition of humanitarian organizations has warned, in what it says would amount to a “grave breach” of international law.
The Global Protection Cluster issued a call this week for states to do all they can to demand a halt to Israel’s plan to seize much of the region, as well as demand an end to all threats of forcible transfer caused by Israel’s declarations of other “firing zones” across the occupied West Bank.
The group, which consists of numerous human rights groups, including UN agencies, warned that 1,200 Palestinians in Masafer Yatta alone are facing risk of forcible transfer. Five thousand additional Palestinians are facing the same risk due to their homes being classified as “firing zones” by Israel.
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“Any individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportation of protected persons, constitutes a grave breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention and is a war crime. It could also amount to a crime against humanity when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack,” the group said.
The move is the latest targeted attack on Masafer Yatta after the region of Palestine was featured by filmmaker and Masafer Yatta native Basel Adra in the documentary No Other Land, which won an Oscar earlier this year. Israeli settlers, who are armed and supported by the Israeli government, have launched an increased wave of violence on Masafer Yatta and the film’s Palestinian makers as a result of the award.
Israel, meanwhile, has intensified demolitions of Palestinians’ homes in the region, and in May, carried out the largest demolition in the area to date.
Israel’s latest declaration mandates the rejection of all pending Palestinian building permit requests in order to allow the military to conduct live fire training in the area they’ve deemed “Firing Zone 918.” This encompasses 12 of 20 villages in Masafer Yatta, and “builds on Israel’s long-standing use of military firing zones as a pretext for land dispossession and settlement expansion,” as No Other Land co-directors Yuval Abraham and Adra wrote for +972 Magazine and Local Call.
“The move to accelerate demolitions aligns with Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s broader annexation agenda,” wrote Abraham and Adra. “With legal channels closing and settler violence intensifying, Israel’s dual strategy of bureaucratic and physical erasure appears poised to complete what it began decades ago: the total clearance of Masafer Yatta’s Palestinian communities.”
Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories, also raised alarm over the dangers of the declaration.
“Yet another war crime, yet another crime against humanity,” she said on social media last week.
“On June 18, Israel’s High Planning Council affirmed that ‘Firing Zone 918’ — instrumentally created to clear Palestinians from the area — is essential for military training, and that all civilian presence and planning requests are to be denied. As the world looks away, Israel accelerates its erasure of Palestinian life and land,” Albanese wrote. “If ‘No Other Land’ moved you, remember: it is not just a movie, it is the LIFE that Palestinians face under Israel’s colonial apartheid.”
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