Jericho - Saba:
Zionist settlers set fire to the homes of Palestinian residents who had returned from Arab al-Malihat to al-Mu'arrajat, after being displaced from there in early July.
According to the Palestinian Safa News Agency, Hassan Malihat, General Supervisor of the Al-Baydar Organization for the Defense of Bedouin Rights and Targeted Villages, said that settler gangs surrounded the residents at dawn and set fire to homes belonging to Ibrahim Ka'abneh, Jamal Malihat, Atallah Malihat, Jibril Ka'abneh, and Muhammad Suleiman.
He added that the arson attacks and renewed attacks on the residents prompted them to leave at dawn today, after the siege and burning of their homes.
Malihat expressed his deep concern over the heinous crime committed by groups of settlers.
The organization documented live testimonies from Bedouin families who had previously been forcibly displaced and returned to their homes yesterday in a desperate attempt to restore a modicum of stability.
The residents said their return was met with settlers besieging them for hours, under the direct cover of enemy forces, who not only failed to protect them, but actually provided protection for the settlers during the attack.
They added that dozens of settlers stormed the site at 1:00 AM and set fire to the barracks that housed the families and their livestock, completely destroying the property and putting the lives of residents in grave danger. The army did not intervene to stop the attack or protect civilians.
Mleihat pointed out that this attack constitutes a new episode in a series of organized crimes targeting the Palestinian Bedouin presence in the Jordan Valley.
He emphasized that the enemy authorities have given the settlers free rein to carry out comprehensive ethnic cleansing operations, without legal or humanitarian deterrence, amid shameful international silence and a systematic failure to protect the civilian population.
It called for an urgent and transparent international investigation into this crime and for those responsible to be held accountable, including those within the Israeli military establishment who provided protection.
It called for immediate intervention by the United Nations, the European Union, and human rights organizations to send monitoring missions to the region and provide urgent international protection for threatened Bedouin communities in the West Bank.
The organization appealed to the International Criminal Court to open a case against those responsible for these violations, considering them war crimes and crimes against humanity under international law.
It emphasized that remaining silent on these crimes will encourage further destruction and forced displacement, and will put the lives of thousands of families at immediate risk, given official policies that embrace ethnic cleansing as a tool of expansion.
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