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Israeli army live training in Palestinian villages is creating unliveable conditions

Ben Lynfield
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Published: 8 July 2022

Last updated: 5 March 2024

BEN LYNFIELD: A house was hit and fields destroyed by tanks in Masafer Yatta. Villagers say it's an attempt to force them to leave

Jerusalem -- The live fire training exercise currently endangering Palestinian villages in the Masafer Yatta area of the occupied West Bank does not seem to be one of the Israel Defence Force's more heroic exploits.

Impacted Palestinians consider the deployment of tanks, helicopters, gunfire and explosions alongside destitute and non-violent herding communities as "terrorism" designed to displace them.

And Israeli left-wing groups such as Breaking the Silence, a veterans group opposing the occupation, see the exercise as evidence of burgeoning moral corruption and racism in Israeli policy towards Palestinians.

Late Wednesday gunfire from the training exercise struck a home in Khallet al-Dabae village, underscoring the risks Palestinians are being exposed to, Nidal Younes, head of the Masafer Yatta local council told The Jewish Independent. The Israeli human rights group B'tselem confirmed that the house was struck. The IDF spokesman had no immediate comment.

Bullet hole in house in Masafer Yatta (Office of office of Meretz MK Mosi Raz) 
Bullet hole in house in Masafer Yatta (Office of office of Meretz MK Mosi Raz) 

Roni Pelli, a lawyer for the Association for Citizens Rights in Israel, said the exercise is a clear violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention designed to protect those living under military occupation

The  exercise has been going on twice weekly for three weeks in follow up to a May 4 ruling by Israel's Supreme Court specifying that about 1200 Palestinians in eight Masafer Yatta villages located inside what the IDF during the 1980s declared as "firing zone 918" had no residency rights and were merely seasonal itinerants.

Thus, they could be immediately expelled from their homes.

The ruling, which stunned the Israeli human rights community, brought to a close a 20-year legal battle that ensued after the IDF forcibly expelled the villagers and their lawyers obtained an interim injunction allowing them to return, albeit with draconian restrictions.

Since the May court ruling speculation among Israeli and Palestinian solidarity activists has been rife over whether the IDF will load the villagers onto trucks and engage in one large expulsion or wage a slower campaign of making their life conditions - always precarious - so impossible through military drills, intensified home demolitions and restricting their movement to the point where they give up and leave.

"They are training on agricultural lands, there is a risk someone will be shot...tanks are destroying the fields."

Sami Hureini, Palestinian youth leader

"Israel is attempting to force us to leave the area,” Younes told The Jewish Independent. "This exercise is dangerous and today the army escalated it."

The latter option of ratcheting up pressure appears to be the policy of choice at the moment, says Dror Sadot, spokeswoman for B'tselem. This is probably due to the public relations damage an open mass expulsion could cause, she says. But no one is ruling out the possibility that the army might still decide to round up all the Palestinians and put them on trucks.

The problem is not merely a local issue but rather has implications for the very future of the entire West Bank since an expulsion or coercive displacement in Masafer Yatta could set a precedent for other mass evictions in the occupied area. Parallel to the military exercise there has been an intensification of home and animal shed demolitions, according to Younes and B'tselem.

The army did not answer a query from The Jewish Independent on why the troops need to train specifically in Masafer Yatta rather than in an uninhabited area.

Younes said the exercise was making it impossible for residents to access their flocks of sheep or move between villages on drill days as well as undercutting Masafer Yattta's links with the outside world. "The tanks are destroying agricultural land and damaging roads. The sounds of gunfire are frightening the people, frightening the children," he said hours before the house was hit.

The IDF seems bent on trying to isolate the area and prevent media coverage of what it is doing. It has been confiscating cars and detaining human rights workers and activists trying to enter the villages on the grounds that it is a closed military zone and there is a safety risk to outsiders.

They could drive for a half hour instead of destroying the lives of hundreds of people"

Avner Gvaryahu, Breaking the Silence

"Israel is attempting to force us to leave the area,” Younes told The Jewish Independent. "This exercise is dangerous and today the army escalated it."

Wisam Maslamani, field worker for the St Yves Dociety, a Catholic human rights group, was barred by IDF troops from reaching Fakhit village on June 24, he told The Jewish Independent. "We had a paper explaining we are from St. Yves. The officer said the paper is rejected. He said they can arrest us and they confiscated our car. We were taken to the Nahal Karyot army base and then just left along a highway. The officer told us 'tell your friends in human rights organisations it is forbidden to enter this area' He refused to give me his name"

In response to a query, the IDF said in a statement emailed to The Jewish Independent that the drills are taking place "in an active firing zone, which is closed to all civilians, Palestinian and Israeli alike"

In a separate incident last week, Palestinian youth leader Sami Hureini, from Tuwani village near the firing zone, was stopped, detained for eight hours and had his car confiscated, Hureini told The Jewish Independent. "A soldier held a gun on me and another activist. Settlers in cars passed freely and shook hands with the soldiers." Apparently referring to the Hureini case, the IDF spokesman said it was a closed area and the wait resulted from having to call in a tow truck to take the vehicle away.

Defying the IDF, Hureini went back into the firing zone on Tuesday, this time in another vehicle. "The army is making the people worried and tired and cutting their connection with the outside world and between villages. I couldn't get from Majaz village to other villages because of checkpoints and training."

"They are training on agricultural lands, there is a risk someone will be shot, people are staying in their own villages. They are harassing the grazing process on which people depend for their livelihood, tanks are destroying the fields. Everything is slowly being destroyed. It's clearly terrorism in order to make our people feel they are in a war with all these explosions and all the other stuff to make people leave."

The IDF statement said that Palestinians living in the area are "regularly updated regarding the dates of the exercise and in particular the hours when live fire will take place and receive information about the expected roadblocks in order to prevent any risk of injury."

It added, “There are reasonable alternatives to use instead of the roads that will be blocked due to the exercise."

But Avner Gvaryahu, Director of Breaking the Silence, termed the IDF drill a "disgrace"

"There are so many training grounds in the occupied territories. They could drive for a half hour instead of destroying the lives of hundreds of people. In no case would we ever allow anyone to do this to Jews around the world or Israeli citizens. But when it comes to Palestinians suddenly the necessity for a firing zone is so extreme it will amount to mass displacement."

The Office of Foreign Affairs and Trade did not respond to a query on what Australia's stance is towards the Israeli military exercise.

Photo: A Palestinian boy sits near Israeli military vehicles stationed during a military drill, in the West Bank village of Yatta (AAP)

 RELATED STORIES

'The Israelis are stealing a Palestinian way of life – for training purposes’ (The Jewish Independent)

For Everyday Palestinians, Abu Akleh Affair Proves They Can't Trust the US - or Abbas (Haaretz)

Lapid won’t rule out meeting with PA’s Abbas, tells French leader there will be no new settlements (Times of Israel)

Palestinian President Abbas Meets Hamas Leader for First Time in 15 Years (Haaretz)

Photo: A Palestinian boy sits near Israeli military vehicles stationed during a military drill, in the West Bank village of Yatta (AAP)

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About the author

Ben Lynfield

Ben Lynfield

Ben Lynfield covered Israeli and Palestinian politics for The Independent and served as Middle Eastern affairs correspondent at The Jerusalem Post. He writes for publications in the region and has contributed to the Christian Science Monitor, Foreign Policy and the New Statesman.

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