Joint Statement by the Palestinian Presidency Bureau, the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Office of the Prime Minister on the Imminent Threat of Forcible Transfer Facing the Palestinian Bedouin Community of Khan al-Ahmar Abu al-Helu

Joint Statement by the Palestinian Presidency Bureau, the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Office of the Prime Minister on the Imminent Threat of Forcible Transfer Facing the Palestinian Bedouin Community of Khan al-Ahmar Abu al-Helu

The recent verdict of Israel's Supreme Court to forcibly transfer 35 Palestinian families and to entirely demolish the Palestinian Bedouin community of Khan al-Ahmar Abu al-Helu is another testament to Israel's culture of impunity that allows it to continue endangering the very existence of the Palestinian people on their land and to commit further grave violations of international law. There will be a war crime being committed before the eyes of the entire international community and yet nobody is willing to take concrete action to stop the Israeli occupation and to protect the Palestinian people, including by imposing sanctions against Israel and its colonial-settlement enterprise.

It was only after Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, and the understanding that the European Union would not take action on the matter, that the Israeli government advanced its annexation plans that affect vast occupied areas of vital importance for the State of Palestine, including the eastern Jerusalem governorate where several Palestinian Bedouin communities are being threatened with yet another forcible displacement, after having been displaced following the Nakba of 1948 from the Naqab.

The State of Palestine is regularly informing the United Nations, the International Criminal Court and other international organizations about the Israeli crimes and violations being committed against our people. Israeli settlers and army burn Palestinian homes, demolish houses, farms, schools, and clinics and confiscate land for the expansion of Jewish only settlements. And it is our responsibility to do everything possible to enable our heroic people to exist in their homeland.  

As we mark this year 51 years of Israel’s colonial occupation of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, we continue to call upon the international community to assume its long overdue legal, political and moral responsibilities to protect the Palestinian people living under Israel’s colonial and apartheid regime, as well as to hold Israel accountable for its grave violations of International Humanitarian Law, UN resolutions and of the national and human rights of the Palestinian people.