JORDAN VALLEY, West Bank: Israel has begun demolishing a Bedouin village in the occupied West Bank for the second time in three months, in what a rights group called an attempt to displace an entire Palestinian community from the area.
Israeli authorities said the village of Khirbet Humsu, in the northern West Bank’s Jordan Valley, had been constructed illegally on a military firing range, and that residents had rejected their offer to move to a nearby area.
Khirbet Humsu’s 130 inhabitants have vowed to stay, with some sleeping on mattresses and plastic tarps strewn on the rocky soil. Tented homes and animal shelters in the village were last razed in November, though residents returned soon after.
“We will not move from here, we will stay here. If they demolish, we will rebuild,” said one of the residents, Ibrahim Abu Awad. He and other Bedouin in the village said they feared Israeli settlers would seize the vacated land.
The Israeli rights group B’Tselem said the demolition at Khirbet Humsu was “unusually broad,” accusing Israel of seeking “to forcibly transfer Palestinian communities in order to take over their land.”
Some 440,000 Israeli settlers live among more than 3 million Palestinians in the West Bank, territory captured by Israel in a 1967 war and which Palestinians want as part of a future state.
Israeli forces began dismantling tents and livestock pens in Khirbet Humsu on Monday, residents and B’Tselem said. On Wednesday, Israeli troops accompanied by bulldozers also knocked down several steel and wooden structures in the village, Reuters TV footage showed.
The dismantled tents had housed 74 Palestinians, including 41 minors, B’Tselem said in a statement.
COGAT, Israel’s military liaison to the Palestinians, said it had explained to residents “the dangers involved in staying within the firing range” and offered them space outside of it.
“Despite the offer, the residents refused to independently move the tent areas that had been set up illegally and without the required permits and approvals,” COGAT said.
Palestinians and rights group say such permits are nearly impossible to obtain from Israel.
Israel razes Palestinian Bedouin village for second time
https://arab.news/rgnjv
Israel razes Palestinian Bedouin village for second time
- Israeli forces began dismantling tents and livestock pens in Khirbet Humsu
- The dismantled tents had housed 74 Palestinians, including 41 minors - B’Tselem
Iran temporarily closes airspace to most flights
WASHINGTON: Iran temporarily closed its airspace to all flights except international ones to and from Iran with official permission at 5:15 p.m. ET on Wednesday, according to a notice posted on the Federal Aviation Administration’s website.
The prohibition is set to last for more than two hours until 7:30 p.m. ET, or 0030 GMT, but could be extended, the notice said. The United States was withdrawing some personnel from bases in the Middle East, a US official said on Wednesday, after a senior Iranian official said Tehran had warned neighbors it would hit American bases if Washington strikes.
Missile and drone barrages in a growing number of conflict zones represent a high risk to airline traffic. India’s largest airline, IndiGo said some of its international flights would be impacted by Iran’s sudden airspace closure. A flight by Russia’s Aeroflot bound for Tehran returned to Moscow after the closure, according to tracking data from Flightradar24.
Earlier on Wednesday, Germany issued a new directive cautioning the country’s airlines from entering Iranian airspace, shortly after Lufthansa rejigged its flight operations across the Middle East amid escalating tensions in the region.
The United States already prohibits all US commercial flights from overflying Iran and there are no direct flights between the countries. Airline operators like flydubai and Turkish Airlines have canceled multiple flights to Iran in the past week. “Several airlines have already reduced or suspended services, and most carriers are avoiding Iranian airspace,” said Safe Airspace, a website run by OPSGROUP, a membership-based organization that shares flight risk information.
“The situation may signal further security or military activity, including the risk of missile launches or heightened air defense, increasing the risk of misidentification of civil traffic.” Lufthansa said on Wednesday that it would bypass Iranian and Iraqi airspace until further notice while it would only operate day flights to Tel Aviv and Amman from Wednesday until Monday next week so that crew would not have to stay overnight.
Some flights could also be canceled as a result of these actions, it added in a statement. Italian carrier ITA Airways, in which Lufthansa Group is now a major shareholder, said that it would similarly suspend night flights to Tel Aviv until Tuesday next week.
