The Jordan Valley: Israeli Civil Administration serves orders to 15 Palestinian families to temporarily evacuate their homes 12 times in May and June
13 May 2019
On the morning of Tuesday, 7 May 2019, Israeli Civil Administration personnel and soldiers arrived at the Palestinian community of Khirbet Humsah (al-Foqa) in the northern Jordan Valley. They served temporary evacuation orders to fifteen of the community’s families, totaling 98 persons, including 56 children. The families received orders to evacuate their homes on 12 separate occasions in May and June. Military training near their homes was cited as pretext. As of 12 May 2019, in the midst of the Muslim month of Ramadan, the families were ordered to vacate their homes every Sunday from 2:00 P.M. until 10:00 A.M. the next morning (Monday); then again from 4:00 P.M. on Monday, until the next morning (Tuesday); and finally, to vacate their homes on Wednesdays from 7:00 A.M. until 2:00 P.M. Some of the families have nowhere else to stay, and will be forced to spend the night out in the open. Most of the families have already undergone temporary displacement last year, including some families who were forced to leave during the month of Ramadan.
Yesterday (Sunday, 12 May 2019), at around 2 P.M., CA personnel came with a military jeep as escort to Khirbet Humsah and ordered the fifteen families to leave their homes from 2:00 P.M. until 10:00 A.M. the next morning. The families left, some by tractor-towed carts and some on foot. The troops detained for five hours journalists and a field researcher of the al-Haq NGO who were documenting the evacuation. They were detained on the grounds of supposedly being in a closed military zone. The next evacuation is slated for today, Monday, to being at 4:00 P.M. this afternoon.