UN: Israel may ’forcibly transfer’ 46 West Bank Beduin communities

Forty-six Palestinian herding and Beduin West Bank communities outside of Jerusalem are at risk of population transfer, the United Nations warned on Wednesday as a top official attended a protest ceremony against the pending IDF demolition of a small, unauthorized school in one of those encampments.Under a hot morning sun, David Carden, who heads the UN’s West Bank Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, sat with Palestinian officials at a long folding table, set up on an artificial green lawn outside the eight-room compound, nicknamed “the tire school.” It services some 170 boys and girls from grades one to nine.Communities such as this one, Khan al-Ahmar, “in the central West Bank [are] identified as being at risk of forcible transfer due to Israeli ‘relocation’ plans,” Carden said.These people are “among the scores of vulnerable Palestinian communities across the occupied Palestinian territory who struggle daily to meet their basic needs and realize their rights in a coercive environment that creates pressure on them to leave their homes,” he said.Above his head plastic Palestinian flags hung off on a string that was stretched out across the lawn.The small community of temporary shacks and modular structures is located on a small ridge off of Route 1, between Jerusalem and Jericho.The school was built in 2009 out of mud and tires, primarily with funds from the Italian non-governmental group, Vento di Terra. It also has the support of the UN, including Carden’s office.

 

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