On September 2, without warning, Israeli bulldozers destroyed the homes of 12 Palestinian families in Khirbet al-Tabban, a herding community in Masafer Yatta, south of Hebron, leaving 70 people homeless, nearly half of them children.

RT’s Charlotte Dubenskij visited the community soon after, interviewing the families and the head of Masafer Yatta council, Nidal Younis. Younis described the demolition as the erasure of this village. He said that in addition to the destroyed homes, “water sources were also targeted, including rainwater collection wells and the families’ small water tanks.” They also destroyed the ten pens housing their 600 animals.

Terrain in the South Hebron Hills is desert-like, dry and hot, and the families’ livelihoods mainly depend on the sheep, goats and chickens they raise and the vegetables they grow – all of which requires water.

According to Israeli rights group B’Tselem, in the 1980s, around 3,000 hectares of the South Hebron Hills were declared a “restricted military zone.” It notes that the expulsion of the roughly 700 residents of 12 villages occurred in 1999, “on the official grounds that they were ‘illegally living in a firing zone’. This flimsy argument blatantly ignored the fact that the families had been living in the area for many years, since before Israel occupied the West Bank and afterwards, with the full knowledge of Israeli authorities … These are false claims, meant to conceal Israel’s aspirations to take over the land for its own purposes and use it to benefit the Jewish population only.”

Just days after razing Khirbet al-Tabban homes, Israeli bulldozers erased another Masafer Yatta community, Khirbet al-Fakhit, leaving 32 more people homeless, and also demolished the home of seven people in still another community, Khirbet Khallet a-Dabe’.

The UN reports that between January 2023 and 31 August 2026, “130 Palestinian communities experienced full or partial displacement. Of these, 48 communities have been fully displaced, including 12 so far in 2026. Overall, more than 6,400 Palestinians, including over 3,100 children, have been displaced in this context since January 2023. Of them, more than 2,500 people, including over 1,200 children, were displaced in 2026 alone.”

All the while........

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