The health and wellbeing of around 1200 Palestinian civilians in the West Bank is being put at risk by the forced displacement being carried out in response to a terror attack carried out by two terrorists last week, multiple Israeli human rights organizations told The Jerusalem Post on Sunday.
The IDF announced that its operation in the Al-Jaladah and Ein Deir Baha neighborhoods near the military checkpoint at the entrance to Hebron was aimed at locating terrorists and weapons and would include demolitions.
The Palestinian Authority condemned the operation as “collective punishment,” while Palestinian officials warned that it would have a significant impact on civilian life. Yousef Zouhair Al-Jabari, head of Hebron’s municipality, told Reuters that around 1,300 additional people faced losing their homes, on top of the 1,200 already displaced.
Al-Jabari alleged that the military had demolished shops, factories, homes, and roads in Hebron.
Milena Ansari, director of Physicians for Human Rights Israel’s Palestinian Territory Department, told the Post that the effects of the latest operation were already being felt by sick and vulnerable residents.
Palestinians fear displacement could be more long-term
Citing the testimony of Osama Abu Sbeih, a Palestinian ambulance driver with the private Al-Salam Ambulance service in Hebron, PHRI reported multiple incidents in which patients were unable to reach critical medical care promptly, including a six-month-old baby suffering from a lung infection who had to wait two days to be transferred from a hospital in Ramallah to Hebron.
“Crews are relying on passing patients from one ambulance to another at checkpoints. Even our mobile clinic that usually goes across the West Bank to provide medical treatment couldn’t reach Msafaryatta for a scheduled medical day,” Ansari said. “But it’s the long-term damage, which is a bit less visible but is as serious as what we’re seeing right now on the ground.”
Ansari shared her fears that the temporary displacement would become more long-term, and warned that the Palestinians housed in temporary shelters or in the crowded homes of relatives would be at risk. Noting that many of the shelters lack proper heating, entering the winter months without proper housing could drive respiratory infections.
For those with chronic conditions, she continued, the disruption to routine can create emergencies. Patients with hypertension, diabetes and on dialysis might particularly struggle should these disruptions become long-term, she warned.
“The psychological toll of being forced out of your home in the middle of the night, especially for the children…These psychological hardships last longer even after an operation ends,” Ansari shared.
Israeli rights group tells IDF there's no link between demolitions and terror attack
The Association for Civil Rights in Israel, in a letter addressed to senior officials in the IDF, including IDF Central Command chief Maj. Gen. Avi Bluth, seen by the Post, complained that there was no evidence of links between the houses being destroyed and the terrorists who carried out last week’s attacks.
ACRI also shared concern in response to the Palestinian claim that some of the displaced were removed from their home at night and left without shelter, that worshipers had been cut off from accessing the Ibrahimi mosque and that thousands were cut off from reaching work and school.
“No attack, however grave, gives the military license to punish an entire city. Families who had nothing to do with the attack are being driven out and their homes demolished, while ministers present this to voters, a few days before the election, as the price Palestinians must pay. That is collective punishment. The military must stop it and let these families return home now, and ACRI will use every legal means available to make sure it does,” said Noa Sattath, Executive Director of ACRI.