00:01Residents of the Bedouin village of Umal Gheir woke up with a fright on Wednesday as several
00:05bulldozers approached their village.
00:08This time they were spared and the bulldozers drove on.
00:13People here have been living in constant fear as the Israeli civil administration last month
00:18ordered the demolition of 14 structures in this village, among them the community center,
00:24one of the few places for kids to play and a key hub for people to meet.
00:29Since the morning when we just get the news that these bulldozers just pulled over nearby
00:35Umal Gheir here, we felt very afraid and we felt, oh, they will come to Umal Gheir for
00:40sure.
00:41And then people start gathering themselves, some people start collecting their stuff from
00:45these homes which target it basically.
00:48Instead, the bulldozers made their way to a neighboring village.
00:52We follow their trail through the vast expanse that is Masafa Yatta in the south of the occupied
00:57West Bank.
00:58This is all that's left of Samia Hammadi's home in Fakhit.
01:01He lived here together with his wife and seven children.
01:04They came here and they demolished everything you see.
01:10Here we had three rooms, a kitchen, a bathroom and a canopy.
01:15They didn't leave anything standing.
01:18As you can see, nothing at all.
01:20There was also a water well and they destroyed that too.
01:24Israeli authorities consider most Palestinian structures in Masafa Yatta to be illegal for
01:29lacking Israeli building permits, which are almost impossible for Palestinians to get.
01:34Israel declared a part of Masafa Yatta a closed military zone in the 1980s, even though many
01:39families had been there for decades, living on the land they used for herding and agriculture.
01:44Residents tried to appeal the military designation, but in May 2022, the high courts of justice
01:49in Israel reaffirmed the army's authority.
01:52This meant the Israeli military was not forced to acknowledge Palestinian presence in the
01:57area, allowing Israeli authorities to move ahead with demolitions.
02:01But while Palestinians are having their homes demolished, settlers are building more and
02:05more outposts in the same area.
02:08People here have little recourse in stopping the demolitions.
02:11Barring some postponements, their appeals are mainly rejected.
02:16It's forced displacement.
02:18They want to drive us out of here.
02:19When they demolish the house, that's it.
02:21You have nothing left.
02:22Nowhere to go.
02:23But we tell them, no, we'll rebuild our home again from the start.
02:30Back in Umal Khair, the waiting continues.
02:33Following a letter to Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, signed by over one hundred
02:37members of the US Congress, the civil administration delayed the demolition order by 14 days.
02:44But uncertainty lingers over what will happen then.
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