LONDON(RAHNUMA): Palestinian residents of the Bedouin community of Khan Al-Ahmar in the occupied West Bank say that they fear imminent displacement after Israeli authorities moved to revive demolition orders against the village.
The development comes ahead of a planned June 1 tender process for the construction of 3,400 settlement units in the E1 area east of Jerusalem, a move critics say would further fragment Palestinian territory and isolate East Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank.
The E1 corridor links Jerusalem with the Ma’ale Adumim settlement bloc and has long been viewed by Palestinians and many international governments as a highly sensitive area because of its implications for the viability of a future Palestinian state.
Khan Al-Ahmar is one of 18 Bedouin and herding communities located in the path of the proposed expansion plan, with about 4,000 Palestinians potentially at risk of displacement.
“Families here are not prepared to leave,” said Abu Khamees, a community leader in Khan Al-Ahmar.
“We had been living in limbo for years, given a temporary halt on the demolition order. The decision for imminent forced displacement was like an electric shock to us. People are anxious about where to go with their children as well as how to access essential services like health and education.”
He added: “This is a nail in the coffin of the so-called two-state solution.”
The UK and several allied governments warned in a joint statement last week that companies involved in settlement activity in the area could face “legal and reputational consequences.”
Medical Aid for Palestinians said in a statement on Thursday that its mobile clinics had provided healthcare services to more than 33,000 Palestinians across 22 communities in the West Bank since 2025, particularly in isolated areas affected by checkpoints, settlement expansion and movement restrictions.
The organization said that increasing settlement activity and settler violence had further restricted access to healthcare, with many rural communities cut off from hospitals and clinics because of roadblocks, settler-only roads and security restrictions.
According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, 870 settler attacks have been recorded across more than 220 West Bank communities so far this year, averaging about six incidents a day.
MAP said that the rise in violence and access restrictions had displaced thousands of Palestinians since the start of 2025, with dozens of rural and herding communities partially or fully emptied.
“The threatened destruction of Khan Al-Ahmar exposes the hollowness of years of international handwringing over illegal settlements,” said Aseel Baidoun, MAP’s deputy director of advocacy and communications in the West Bank.
“If Khan Al-Ahmar is erased from the map, it will not happen quietly or accidentally,” she added.
