Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak ordered the demolition of eight Palestinian villages, claiming the need for occupation forces to use them as training lands.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak ordered the demolition of eight Palestinian villages, claiming the need for occupation forces to use them as training lands.

Israeli daily Haaretz quoted Zionist officials as telling the Israeli “High Court of Justice” that the residents of the villages in the South Hebron Hills would be moved to the town of Yatta and its environs.

However, Israeli occupation authorities would “allow” the residents to work their lands and graze their flocks there when the occupation forces are not training -- on weekends and Jewish holidays, the daily added.

The villages slated for demolition are the larger villages in the region: Majaz, Tabban, Sfai, Fakheit, Halaweh, Mirkez, Jinba, and Kharuba, which have a total of 1,500 residents. The villages to be spared are Tuba, Mufaqara, Sarura and Megheir al-Abeid, which have a total of 300 residents.

The Israeli “Civil Administration” started to issue demolition orders against cisterns and restrooms that several families had added, claiming that these additions violated the status quo as set by the court.

Evacuation orders were issued against the 12 villages in 1999, but were frozen by an injunction issued by the High Court of Justice in response to two petitions that were united: One by attorney Shlomo Lecker and the second by the “Association for Civil Rights” in the Zionist entity, who together represented some 200 families. An effort to reach an agreement on the status of the residents in the area by a mediation process failed in 2005.