"(Jerusalem) – Israeli military forces should cease actions in a West Bank Bedouin community that were apparently intended to displace the residents without lawful justification. The military demolished all homes in the community on September 16, 2013, and blocked four attempts by humanitarian groups to provide shelters, with soldiers using force against residents, humanitarian workers, and foreign diplomats on September 20. Under international humanitarian law in effect in the occupied West Bank, the deliberate unlawful forced transfer of a population is a war crime.
An Israeli court in August rejected a petition against military demolition orders by residents of Mak-hul and other Bedouin communities, on technical grounds. On September 24, more than a week after Mak-hul was demolished, the court temporarily suspended any further demolitions.
“The Israeli military should end its unjustified attempts to forcibly remove a decades-old community,” said Joe Stork, acting Middle East director. “Israeli forces didn’t just rough up diplomats, they demolished every single building in Mak-hul and ordered the residents to leave and never come back.”
Israeli forces demolished all 58 buildings in Mak-hul on September 16, displacing at least 48 residents, according to UN reports. The soldiers then blocked and confiscated two aid deliveries and demolished shelters built by another humanitarian group with the wreckage left over from the first demolitions, residents and humanitarian workers said.
Numerous witnesses said that on September 20, Israeli forces threw “sound bombs” – disorienting, non-lethal grenades that make a loud noise on impact – at diplomats and aid workers attempting to deliver tents and other aid. Israeli forces also assaulted two Bedouin residents, who were later hospitalized, arrested three, and confiscated the truck and its cargo, witnesses said......."
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