JERUSALEM: Israel’s Supreme Court has temporarily blocked the demolition of a Palestinian Bedouin village in the occupied West Bank, following growing international concerns over the move.
The order, issued on Thursday night, stops the Israeli authorities razing Khan al Ahmar until at least July 11 to give the state time to respond, according to a copy of the document posted on Friday on the court website.
“A temporary injunction is hereby granted forbidding the implementation of the demolition orders,” it said.
Attorney Shlomo Lecker, representing villagers, said that the respite followed a new petition by residents who submitted a planning application to rebuild the village at its present location.
The present village consists mainly of makeshift structures of tin and wood, as is generally the case with Bedouin sites.
There has been strong international pressure on Israel to reverse its plans to raze Khan al Ahmar, which the Israeli authorities say was built illegally. In May, the Supreme Court rejected a final appeal against its demolition.
Activists say the villagers had little alternative but to build without Israeli construction permits that are almost never issued to Palestinians in the parts of the West Bank where Israel has full control over civilian affairs.
Israeli rights activist Angela Godfrey-Goldstein said she believed that diplomatic pressure played a role in the stay of execution.
Diplomats from Belgium, Finland, France, Ireland, Italy, Spain, Switzerland and the European Union tried on Thursday to visit Khan al Ahmar’s school, which is funded by several European countries, but they were turned back at the village entrance.
The consul general of France in Jerusalem, Pierre Cochard, told journalists at the scene that demolishing the village of 173 residents would be a violation of the Geneva convention which lays out the obligations of an occupying power toward those under its control.
It would also significantly complicate the search for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, he added.
Police said the area had been declared a closed military zone.
— AFP
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