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“Danger. Firing Area. Entrance Forbidden” (Photo: Yossi Gurvitz)


“Firing Zone 918″ is the Israeli military’s term for a portion of land in the West Bank home to hundreds of Palestinians who have been there since the 19th century. Why are they under threat of eviction and how is it being done? A primer.

By Eyal Raz

We must maintain “the necessary fitness of the IDF”

This is the reason that the State of Israel has given for its recent order by Defense Minister Ehud Barak to destroy eight Palestinian villages and expel 1,500 residents from their land in the southern West Bank. “Firing Zone 918,” which the Israeli military wants for so-called training, includes 30,000 acres of private and agricultural land in the South Hebron Hills. The Palestinian residents have lived and worked on these lands for generations. Since 1999, the threat of expulsion has hovered over their heads. The destiny of these villages will soon be decided.

1. A chronicle of expulsion and legal developments

Israel declared the area a “closed military zone” in the mid-1970s. In 1999 the Civil Administration issued demolition orders for dozens of buildings, and during October and November of the same year, Israeli authorities expelled over 700 residents from their homes and confiscated their property. Throughout the operation of expulsion the security forces sealed caves and demolished tents, wells and toilet structures. Four months later the Israeli High Court of Justice ordered to allow the people to return to their land and forbade their expulsion pending a final decision. The defense minister and the general of the central command at the time tried to uphold the expulsion, partially to keep the area under Israeli control in negotiations.

In 2005, after the arbitration process ended with no agreement, the hearings resumed in an effort to avert the new demolition orders issued by the Civil Administration. (For the sequence of legal proceedings during these years and to witness the violence of security forces and settlers against the villagers facing eviction, click here.) For the next seven years, the interim orders temporarily thwarted the destruction of the villages.

Last July, the state informed the High Court that the defense minister’s position was that “permanent residency will not be allowed” in most of the area designated as a firing zone and that eight of the 12 villages originally included in the warrant will have to be evacuated. For procedural reasons unrelated to the fundamental arguments presented by the attorneys, the High Court ordered that the petitions be annulled. However, the interim order prohibiting the demolition will remain intact, and the residents will submit new petitions before its final date.

2. “Firing Zone 918″ as an illustration of policy

60.2 percent of the West Bank is designated as “Area C,” according to the Oslo map that was drawn up in the framework of the interim agreement signed between Israel and the PLO in 1995. This map, which was supposed to be applied for five years during which a final-status agreement would be reached, was designed around one central principle: demography. The division of the West Bank into three separate areas enabled the transfer of control over large swaths of the Palestinian population to the Palestinian Authority, while at the same time preserving large and sparsely populated [by Palestinians] swaths of territory under complete Israeli control.

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Eyal Raz is a political activist from Jerusalem. This article was originally published in Hebrew in Haoketz. For more information on this struggle and to take part, visit the Facebook page at News Source Link

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