ABOUT 20 Bedouin communities between Jerusalem and Jericho are to be forcibly relocated from the land on which they have lived for 60 years under an Israeli plan to expand a huge Jewish settlement.
The removal of about 2300 members of the Jahalin tribe, two-thirds of whom are children, is due to begin next month. Israeli authorities plan to relocate the families to a site close to a rubbish dump on the edge of Jerusalem.
The Bedouin say the move would expose them to health hazards and deny them access to land to graze their livestock. They add that the viability of their existing communities has been seriously damaged by the growth of Jewish settlements, the creation of military zones and demolition of homes.
''We are living in a jail, which gets smaller every year,'' said Eid Hamis Swelem Jahalin, 46, who was born in the encampment of Khan al-Ahmar and has lived there almost all his life.
The relocation plan is the first phase of a program to remove about 27,000 Bedouin from Area C, the 62 per cent of the occupied West Bank under full Israeli military control.
The head of Israel's civil administration, the military body that governs Area C, visited Khan al-Ahmar three weeks ago to give verbal warning of the impending removal, Mr Hamis said. ''He said the land belongs to the government, that we are illegally here. I told him that I lived here before 1967, before you even came to our land.''
The area on which the Jahalin live has been designated by Israel for the expansion of the settlement of Maale Adumim.
''They want to empty the Bedouin from the whole area, and they will put settlers in our place, and there will be no Palestinian state,'' said Mr Hamis. All Jewish settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem are illegal under international law.
The Jahalin were originally from the Negev desert, from where they fled or were forced out of following the creation of the state of Israel in 1948.
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