Israel demolishes homes, goes ahead with Khan al Ahmar 'colonial project'

Israeli forces have "illegally" demolished several shacks built by Palestinian protesters in the occupied West Bank on Thursday.

The newly-built protest huts are near Khan al Ahmar, a Bedouin village that has become a focus of Palestinian protests and international concern. 

Israel wants to demolish the village and relocate its 180 residents to a site 12 km away. 

In a statement on Wednesday, the Palestinian Authority said the decision to raze Khan al Ahmar village consolidates Israel's "colonial project" of building "an arc of settlements" that would effectively cut off occupied East Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank.

"This illegal decision uncovers the colonial DNA of Israel's institutions that work to confiscate Palestinian lands ... effectively alienating it from the West Bank and killing any hopes for a future contiguous Palestinian state," the statement said.

TRT World 's Caitlin McGee reports from occupied East Jerusalem.

Khan al Ahmar is situated a few kilometres from Jerusalem between two major illegal Israeli settlements, Maale Adumim and Kfar Adumim, which Israel wants to expand. 

The removal of the Bedouin village enables Israel to cut the West Bank in two.

Bedouin

The villagers are members of the Bedouin Jahalin tribe, which was expelled from their lands in the Negev desert by the Israeli military in the 1950s. 

They were displaced twice more before they settled in Khan al Ahmar, long before the illegal settlements around it existed.

The small community of 40 families lives in tents and shacks on what is classified by the 1993 Oslo Accords as Area C, which accounts for 60 percent of the West Bank and is under total Israeli administrative and security control.

Last week, Israel's Supreme Court rejected petitions to prevent the move, siding with the authorities who say the village was built without required permits, which Palestinians say is impossible to obtain because of the expansion of illegal Jewish-only Israeli settlements there.

The five new huts removed by the Israelis early on Thursday had been built this week by activists from several rights groups and the Western-backed Palestinian Authority in support of the Bedouin community.