Israeli forces demolish dozens of buildings in West Bank village, displacing 180 including 85 children

Israeli forces have demolished dozens of buildings in the Palestinian village of Jinba in the occupied West Bank, leaving around 180 people homeless, including 85 children, RT correspondent Charlotte Dubenskij has reported. Visiting the community after the operation, she found families gathering belongings among the rubble.

Israeli military and police accompanied by heavy machinery entered Jinba on Wednesday and destroyed 24 homes, as well as agricultural structures, solar panels, and water tanks. It was the third large-scale demolition in the Masafer Yatta area in three weeks.

”When they came back, they said, ‘Where is our house?’ Then the crying and screaming started,” one resident told RT, recalling the reaction of children returning after the demolition. “The house itself does not break me. I built it. They demolish it. And we rebuild it.”

“What breaks my heart is a little child who stayed in the Sun all day,” he added, saying his two-month-old granddaughter had been left without shelter.

B’Tselem, an Israeli human rights group that monitors Israel’s policies in the Palestinian territories, has accused Israel of systematically dismantling Palestinian communities in the area. “This is ethnic cleansing in broad daylight,” the group said, adding that the international community “knows exactly what is happening, yet continues to allow it.” B’Tselem has documented the destruction of other homes and infrastructure across Masafer Yatta this month.

Jinba lies inside Firing Zone 918, an area Israel designated for military training in the 1980s. Israel’s High Court ruled in 2022 that residents had failed to prove permanent residence there before the firing zone was established, clearing the way for demolitions.

In other parts of the West Bank, Israeli military bulldozers have also uprooted Palestinian olive trees days before the annual harvest. “They left us with nothing,” a farmer in Deir Nizam near Ramallah told Reuters on Wednesday after trees on his land were torn from the ground.

Addressing the UN General Assembly on Tuesday, Jordan’s King Abdullah II accused Israel of pursuing a broader policy of displacement in the West Bank. “What is unfolding across the West Bank is not a series of isolated acts,” he said. “There is a name for that: forced displacement. And that is a war crime.”

Israel has rejected accusations over its conduct and launched a campaign accusing the UN and its critics of repeatedly spreading false claims about the country. However, across the Palestinian territories, communities are being squeezed until they have little choice but to pack up and leave, Dubenskij says.

Watch the full report below.