Ramallah: Israeli occupation forces have ordered tens of Palestinian families in northern areas of the Jordan Valley to evacuate their homes because the Israeli military forces plan to conduct exercises with live ammunition there.
According to Arif Daraghmah, who heads the local council of Wadi Al Maleh and Bedouin areas in the northern Jordan Valley, at least 20 Palestinian families received written instructions on Wednesday that they needed to evacuate their homes within a grace period of two weeks.
“The targeted Palestinian families are mainly from the villages of Al Burj and Al Ras Al Ahmar and need to find alternative houses in other areas to live in,” he told Gulf News. He added that the targeted residents are all shepherds who rely on access to open areas of land to graze their cattle on.
He said the Israeli military forces use live fire during military exercises and members of Palestinian families in such areas have been killed in the past. He said that the families affected by the evacuation are all civilians who make a living off the land. Daraghmah maintained that these people cannot abandon their land as their cattle will die.
The Jericho and Jordan Valley Areas Governorate said that Israeli military forces are taking advantage of claims of military exercises to force families from the areas in question.
A senior governorate official said that Israel is making the life of Palestinian families in the Jordan Valley areas tough to force them out and take over the areas. The official told Gulf News that colonists have also spread in the areas but none of them has been told to leave to enable the military to conduct exercises.
The official said that Israel wants the Jordan Valley areas as a strategic area and has announced that it will never give up those areas to a future Palestinian state under any future peace deal with the Palestinians. Israel also wants to control the crossing with Jordan.
Recently Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu officially announced that a future Palestinian state will not be created unless the Palestinians agree to an Israeli security presence inside the Palestinian state. The governorate official interviewed declared that the Jordan Valley areas will be the most important Israeli target in terms of the land proposed to form the future Palestinian state.
