A few benches surrounded the embers of a fire in the rectangular outline of what had once been a rudimentary home.
The large delegation of European ambassadors arrived last week in a convoy of SUVs meandering down a dirt road through the nearby Jewish farming settlement of Ro’I.
They parked a discreet distance from the Israeli forces who were watching from the eastern edge of what had been a homestead. The diplomats made their way through the twisted remains of corrugated iron roof panels, torn tents and a lonely refrigerator.
They had driven home to bring home their dismay at the continued displacement of Arabs by Israel from the West Bank land and more generally at the continued expansion of Jewish settlements into areas conquered by Israel in 1967.
Aysha Abu Awaad walks bent double with great difficulty. She watched the arrival of the diplomats sitting on a pillow under a makeshift canopy and flew flies away from the face of one of her grandchildren sleeping in a crib.
She says the last time the Israeli forces came “they told us to leave and that the land is theirs and to train the army here.”
Israel has declared the area a “closed military zone”.
Military officials often make this statement when trying to clear areas of people they say are “squatters.”
Likewise, Palestinians, who have lived in parts of the southern hills of Hebron for years, were evicted from the village of Jenbah when the area around it was declared a “training ground,” part of a shooting range last week.
As they left, Israeli armor was filmed by the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem driving over crops and the roofs of houses built in caves.
Donald Trump’s administration broke with decades of US policy and said Jewish settlements in the West Bank do not violate international law. This is not in line with the United Nations, the European Union, the United Kingdom and most current interpretations of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which prohibits land seizure and construction in occupied territory.
President Joe Biden has always been a committed friend of Israel and supported the “two-state solution.” But he gave no indication in his first foreign policy speech as president whether he would reverse Trump’s view of settlements.
In Humsa, EU Member Sven Kuehn von Burgsdorff said: “We express our deep concern about the policy of demolishing housing structures of Bedouin communities that have lived here for decades.
“And our concern is very simple. We are here to enforce international law, including international military law that prohibits the demolition of residential buildings in occupied territories. It is against the obligations. [of Israel] under the 4th Geneva Convention also expulsions or forced transfers. Here we are talking about 100 people, 40 to 50 of whom are children. We are in the middle of a pandemic, we are in the middle of winter. Where do these people go with homelessness, towards winter? ”
Mark Regev, a senior adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, told CNN that the Israeli Supreme Court had ruled that the Bedouin here had no claim to the land and insisted that the court was completely free from political influence, and that the Palestinian leaders considered the Bedouin pawns.
“The Israeli government was willing to go the extra mile here,” said Regev.
“We offered to move them, we offered to build housing in a different area. I think for political reasons the residents were not allowed to accept those proposals,” he said.
Regev also said that Israel was the recognized civil and military power in “Area C” of the West Bank, part of the land conquered by Israel in 1967 under the Oslo Accords of the 1990s.
Area C covers about 60% of the West Bank’s land area, although most Palestinians live in either Area B, under Israeli military rule but under Palestinian civil rule, or in Area A, which is most of the West Bank’s urban areas where The Palestinian Authority controls both security and civil administration.
The Oslo Accords were to be a process of negotiated evolution that would lead to the end of the occupation of Israel and the birth of a peaceful Palestinian state alongside Israel. But more than 25 years later, that is a fading vision.
A group of Bedouins sat on the floor outside a circle of delegates and press, muttering about how pointless the whole scene was.
One of them got up as Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh approached.
“We don’t need water tanks or tents to be replaced. We need political support,” he shouted.
Decades of intermittent violence and blockades over the future of Palestinian refugees and their descendants claim “ a UN mandated ‘right of return,’ ‘the future of Jerusalem that both sides want as its capital, and the long-term status of the settlements are not erased.
So bitterness graves. And Israel’s expansion of the West Bank settlement project continues. Now more than 400,000 Israelis live in the West Bank – which the Obama-Biden administration has always opposed, but was embraced by Trump. And with the fourth Israeli election in two years in March – many believe it is a way for Netanyahu to bolster his conservative support.
In the first 20 days of this year alone prior to Biden’s inauguration, Israel announced plans to build an additional 3,352 settlement houses in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Burgsdorff told CNN that he estimated that the EU, and bilateral donations, to Palestinians by European nations were about $ 780 million a year.
Without believing that Israel and the Palestinians will move the peace process forward, it is widely recognized by European diplomats that their money is being spent to keep Palestinians out of poverty and to lessen the influence of radical groups such as Hamas, which rules Gaza. dedicated to the destruction of Israel.
“This is money that Israelis should find differently, as they do not assume the responsibility of ensuring the economic and social well-being of the 5 million Palestinians who have lived under occupation for 67 years,” von Burgsdorff said.
This is not a responsibility that Israel accepts. The Oslo Accords transfer responsibility for most Palestinians to the Palestinian Authority, Israeli officials say.
This has made the PA, as well as the Palestine Liberation Organization, which represents the Palestinians in negotiations with Israel, look increasingly powerful to achieve independence.
Shtayyeh, facing elections in May, led his own delegation to Humsa.
Since you’ve accomplished so little, maybe it’s time to disband and give up the PA? CNN asked him.
“We have fought all our lives for an independent Palestinian state that is sovereignly viable and borders the borders of ’67, with Jerusalem as its capital. We have achieved something. We have not achieved everything. The Palestinian Authority is not a gift. Israelis to us. This is a culmination of our sacrifices, so we continue to give hope to our people, “he replied.
But that “hope” meant little to Aysha abu Awwad when the storm came and she was carefully ushered into a tent donated by the Red Crescent, while younger members of her clan struggled with tarps and the rain began to beat.
Abeer Salman contributed to this report.