  {"id":320301,"date":"2026-09-24T19:54:43","date_gmt":"2026-09-24T23:54:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/?post_type=document&#038;p=320301"},"modified":"2026-09-24T19:54:43","modified_gmt":"2026-09-24T23:54:43","slug":"un-human-rights-in-opt-msafer-yatta-demolitions-deepen-fears-of-ethnic-cleansing-in-the-occupied-west-bank-en-ar","status":"publish","type":"document","link":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/document\/un-human-rights-in-opt-msafer-yatta-demolitions-deepen-fears-of-ethnic-cleansing-in-the-occupied-west-bank-en-ar\/","title":{"rendered":"Ä¢¹½ÊÓÆµ Human Rights in OPT: Msafer Yatta demolitions deepen fears of ethnic cleansing in the occupied West Bank [EN\/AR]"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Masafer-Yatta-Arabic.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span class=\"menu-text\">\u0639\u0631\u0628\u064a<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p>24 September 2026<\/p>\n<p>Israel must immediately halt the mass destruction of Palestinian villages in Msafer Yatta, South Hebron Hills, and the forcible transfer of the residents, compounding fears of ethnic cleansing in the occupied West Bank.<\/p>\n<p>On 23 September, Israeli forces with Israeli Civil Administration bulldozers demolished dozens of Palestinian structures including homes, agricultural infrastructure as well as water tanks and solar panels in the village of Jinba. Three additional villages in Msafer Yatta have already been destroyed, almost entirely, in September 2026. Overall, there are 12 villages in Msafer Yatta housing over 1,100 Palestinians, most of whom have owned and lived on the land for generations.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur homes were torn down today, wiped from the face of the earth,\u201d one resident of Jinba told Ä¢¹½ÊÓÆµ Human Rights \u2013 OPT, \u201cThis isn\u2019t the demolition of rocks, this is the destruction of years of hard work and memories.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Israeli demolitions of Palestinian homes and infrastructure have so far displaced 1,500 people in the occupied West Bank in 2026 according to OCHA \u2014 over a third of all 4,300 forcibly displaced Palestinians this year.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe forcible transfer of a civilian population from their land by an occupying power is a war crime. The case of Msafer Yatta also raises serious concerns of deepening Israel\u2019s violation of international law\u2019s prohibition of racial segregation and apartheid,\u201d said Ajith Sunghay, the Head of Ä¢¹½ÊÓÆµ Human Rights \u2013 OPT.<\/p>\n<p>In the 1980s, Israel declared some 30,000 dunums of Msafer Yatta where Palestinians had lived long before 1967 as \u201cFiring Zone 918\u201d. Waves of Israeli eviction and demolition orders have continued in the area since then with Israeli authorities consistently citing the requirement of military training in the designated firing zone.<\/p>\n<p>However, Israeli settlers live in at least 11 outposts within Firing Zone 918 without contestation, most of which were created after October 2023. All settlements are unlawful under international law, but outposts are illegal even under Israeli law. The Israeli Government has retroactively regularized at least one of the outposts partially located in Firing Zone 918 in February 2023.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIsrael\u2019s toolbox for Palestinian erasure in the occupied West Bank is vast: demolitions, evictions, settlement expansion, settler violence, arbitrary zoning, land confiscations, appropriation of heritage sites, raids, devastating violence,\u201d Sunghay said, \u201cBut it is all happening under the same banner \u2014 Israel consolidating its annexation of as much Palestinian territory as possible, with as few Palestinians as possible, as fast as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMember States must act now while they still can, to halt this project and ensure Palestinians are able to exercise their right to self-determination,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; \u0639\u0631\u0628\u064a 24 September 2026 Israel must immediately halt the mass destruction of Palestinian villages in Msafer Yatta, South Hebron Hills, and the forcible transfer of the residents, compounding fears of ethnic cleansing in the occupied West Bank. On 23 September, Israeli forces with Israeli Civil Administration bulldozers demolished dozens of Palestinian structures including homes, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/document\/un-human-rights-in-opt-msafer-yatta-demolitions-deepen-fears-of-ethnic-cleansing-in-the-occupied-west-bank-en-ar\/\"> [&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":299,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"country":[],"document-category":[1329],"document-source":[1825],"committee-meeting":[],"document-subject":[2029,1745,6844,6251],"entity":[1729],"document-language":[6544,6542],"class_list":["post-320301","document","type-document","status-publish","hentry","document-category-press-release","document-source-office-of-the-united-nations-high-commissioner-for-human-rights-ohchr","document-subject-house-demolitions","document-subject-refugees-and-displaced-persons","document-subject-war-crimes","document-subject-west-bank","entity-united-nations-system","document-language-arabic","document-language-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document\/320301","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/document"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/299"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document\/320301\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":320306,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document\/320301\/revisions\/320306"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=320301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"country","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/country?post=320301"},{"taxonomy":"document-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-category?post=320301"},{"taxonomy":"document-source","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-source?post=320301"},{"taxonomy":"committee-meeting","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/committee-meeting?post=320301"},{"taxonomy":"document-subject","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-subject?post=320301"},{"taxonomy":"entity","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/entity?post=320301"},{"taxonomy":"document-language","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-language?post=320301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}