KHAN AL-AHMAR, West Bank: Two influential Israeli lawmakers demanded the clearance of a Bedouin encampment near Jerusalem on Monday, reigniting a years-long battle over the site and urging Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to defy international pressure.
Khan Al-Ahmar has been at the heart of a battle over land rights in the West Bank for years, with international bodies including the European Union urging Israel not to evacuate the site and move its inhabitants out by force.
But the election of a new government which includes nationalist right-wing parties determined to expand Israeli settlements in the West Bank has brought new pressure to clear the encampment. The pressure has been particularly strong since the army prevented a small group of Jewish settlers setting up an outpost in the West Bank last week.
“All the necessary permissions are on the table, including the approval of the Supreme Court of Israel, it’s just up to the defense minister and the prime minister to decide,” said Yuli Edelstein, a Knesset deputy and chairman of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee who joined Danny Danon, a member of Netanyahu’s Likud party and former envoy to the United Nations.
“I think the sooner the actions will be taken, the less problems it will create,” he said.
In 2018, after years of legal battles, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the demolition of the site, which was built without construction permits. Palestinians say such permits are virtually impossible for them to obtain.
Successive Israeli governments have held off from enforcing demolition following international calls to refrain from compulsory evacuation of the residents, who say their families have lived in the area since the 1950s.
On Monday, as the deputies stood with a police escort on a hill opposite the hamlet to demand clearance, a group of demonstrators with Palestinian flags gathered in Khan Al-Ahmar to show support.
The standoff follows a prolonged battle over an order to evacuate the West Bank area of Masafer Yatta near Hebron, a group of hamlets where Palestinian shepherds and farmers claim a historic connection to the land.
A scruffy cluster of tin and wooded shacks by the side of a highway out of Jerusalem between the Israeli settlements of Maale Adumim and Kfar Adumim, Khan Al-Ahmar is home to around 180 people and includes an EU-funded school.
Palestinians say the aim of the pressure to evacuate the areas is to clear the way for expanded Israeli settlements in the West Bank, the area which would form the core of any future Palestinian state.
“The goal is to empty the land and give it to the settlers,” said Eid Jahalin, head of the Khan Al-Ahmar compound.
Israeli lawmakers demand clearance of Bedouin encampment
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Israeli lawmakers demand clearance of Bedouin encampment
- Khan Al-Ahmar has been at the heart of a battle over land rights in the West Bank for years
- Knesset deputies stood with a police escort on a hill opposite the hamlet to demand clearance
Lebanon’s government approves a deal to transfer Syrian prisoners back to Syria
- Lebanon and Syria have a complicated history with grievances on both sides
- A key obstacle to warming relations has been the fate of about 2,000 Syrians in Lebanese prisons
BEIRUT: Lebanon’s Cabinet on Friday approved an agreement to transfer Syrian prisoners serving their sentences in Lebanon back to their home country.
The issue of prisoners has been a sore point as the neighboring countries seek to recalibrate their relations following the ouster of former Syrian President Bashar Assad in a lightning offensive by Islamist-led insurgents in December 2024. Former insurgent leader Ahmad Al-Sharaa is now Syria’s interim president.
Lebanon and Syria have a complicated history with grievances on both sides. Many Lebanese resent the decades-long occupation of their country by Syrian forces that ended in 2005. Many Syrians resent the role played by the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah when it entered Syria’s civil war in defense of Assad’s government.
A key obstacle to warming relations has been the fate of about 2,000 Syrians in Lebanese prisons, including some 800 held over attacks and shootings, many without trial. Damascus had asked Beirut to hand them over to continue their prison terms in Syria, but Lebanese judicial officials said Beirut would not release any attackers and that each must be studied and resolved separately.
The deal approved Friday appeared to resolve that tension. Lebanese Information Minister Paul Morcos said other issues remain to be resolved between the two countries, including the fate of Lebanese believed to have been disappeared into Syrian prisons during Assad’s rule and the demarcation of the border between the two countries.
Lebanon’s Deputy Prime Minister Tarek Mitri told reporters after the Cabinet meeting that about 300 prisoners would be transferred as a result of the agreement.
Protesters gathered in a square below the government palace in downtown Beirut ahead of the Cabinet vote to call for amnesty for Lebanese prisoners, including some who joined militant groups fighting against Assad in Syria. Some of the protesters called for the release of Sunni cleric Ahmad Al-Assir, imprisoned for his role in 2013 clashes that killed 18 Lebanese army soldiers.
“The state found solutions for the Syrian youth who are heroes and belong to the Syrian revolution who have been imprisoned for 12 years,” said protester Khaled Al- Bobbo. “But in the same files there are also Lebanese detainees. ... We demand that just as they found solutions for the Syrians, they must also find solutions for the people of this country.”
