In the firing zone Israeli court ruling prompts wave of West Bank evictions

Below the dusty plateau, home to Khribet al-Fakhiet village, on the southern edge of the occupied West Bank, sheep, goats and camels belonging to Palestinian Bedouin people roam the hills.

- Bethan McKernan, Quique Kierszenbaum

The Israeli town of Arad glitters in the distance and, across the valley to the east, the mountains of neighbouring Jordan rise. Closer to home, the illegal Israeli settlement of Mitzpe Yair looms from the next ridge.

Bone-shattering unpaved roads crisscross this poverty-stricken, hilly semi-desert, part of the 60% of the West Bank that is under full Israeli control. Palestinians call it Masafer Yatta, a collection of villages with a population of about 1,000. To the Israeli state, this is Firing Zone 918, a military training area in which civilians are prohibited. The fight for control of these 3,000 hectares (7,410 acres) is one of the fiercest battles of the Israeli occupation.

Earlier this month, Israel's supreme court finally ruled in a two-decade-old legal case over the area's fate: the land can be repurposed for military use, upholding the Israel Defence Forces' (IDF) claim that Palestinians here could not prove they were resident before the firing zone was established in 1981. The decision - one of the most significant on expulsions since the occupation began in 1967 - paved the way for the eviction of everyone here.

The long-feared demolitions, which UN experts have said may amount to war crimes, have already started. Last week, 11 homes and workshops in Fakhiet were demolished. Nine structures in nearby al-Majaz were rn down with bulldozers by an Israeli company that conducts demolition work for the state. IDF soldiers and police, who had the the job of securing the perimeter, looked on.