Some sofas were around the embers of a fireplace within the rectangular outline of what had once been a rudimentary house.
The large delegation of European ambassadors came in a convoy of SUVs that snaked along a dirt road through the Jewish agricultural settlement of Ro’I last week.
They parked at a discreet distance from Israeli troops watching from the eastern edge of what had been a rural property. Diplomats made their way through the gnarled remains of corrugated metal panels on the roof, torn tents and a lonely refrigerator.
They drove to make clear their dismay at the continued displacement of Israeli Arabs from the West Bank lands and, more broadly, at the continued expansion of Jewish settlements in areas captured by Israel in 1967.
Aysha Abu Awaad walks double with great difficulty. She watched the diplomats arrive sitting on a pillow under a makeshift awning and shook the flies away from the face of one of her baby grandchildren who was dozing in a crib.
She says that the last time Israeli forces came “they told us that we should leave and that the land belongs to them and they need to train the army here.”
Israel declared the area a “closed military zone”.
Military officials often make this statement when trying to clear areas of people they say are “invaders”.
Likewise, Palestinians, who have lived in southern parts of the Hebron hills for years, were forced to leave the village of Jenbah when the surrounding area was declared a “training area”, part of a firing zone, in the last week.
As they left, Israeli armor was filmed by Israeli human rights group B’Tselem driving over plantations and roofs of houses built in caves.
Donald Trump’s administration broke with decades of U.S. policy and said Jewish settlements in the West Bank did not violate international law. This is out of step with the United Nations, the European Union, the United Kingdom and most interpretations of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which prohibits the seizure of land and construction in occupied territories.
President Joe Biden has historically been a committed friend to Israel and has supported the “two-state solution”. But he gave no indication as to whether he would reverse Trump’s view of the deals in his first foreign policy speech as president.
In Humsa, EU delegate Sven Kuehn von Burgsdorff said: “We express our strong concern about the policy of demolishing residential structures in Bedouin communities that have lived here for decades.
“And our concern is very simple. We are here to defend international law, including international military law that prohibits demolition of residential structures in occupied territories. It is contrary to obligations [of Israel] under the 4th Geneva Convention, evictions or forced transfer in the same way. We are talking about 100 people, 40 to 50 of whom are children. We are in the middle of a pandemic, we are in the middle of winter. Where do these people go facing homelessness, facing winter? ”
Mark Regev, a senior adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, told CNN that the Israeli Supreme Court had ruled that the Bedouins here had no land rights and insisted that the court was completely free from political influence and that the Palestinian leadership was using Bedouins as pawns.
“The Israeli government was willing to go further here,” said Regev.
“We offer to relocate them, we offer them to build houses in another area. I think that for political reasons, residents were not allowed to accept these proposals, ”he said.
Regev also said Israel was the recognized civilian and military power in West Bank “Area C”, part of the land captured by Israel in 1967, under the Oslo agreements of the 1990s.
Area C corresponds to about 60% of the West Bank land area, although the majority of Palestinians live in Area B, under the Israeli military regime, but under Palestinian civilian administration, or in Area A, which is the majority of urban areas in the West Bank, where The Palestinian Authority controls security and civil administration.
The Oslo Accords should be a process of negotiated evolution leading to an end to the occupation of Israel and the birth of a peaceful Palestinian state alongside Israel. But, more than 25 years later, this is a dim view.
A group of Bedouin men sat on the floor outside a circle of delegates and pressed, murmuring how useless the whole scene was.
One rose when the Palestinian Authority’s prime minister, Mohammad Shtayyeh, approached.
“We don’t need water tanks or tents to be replaced. We need political support,” he shouted.
Decades of intermittent violence and congestion over the future of Palestinian refugees and their descendants affirm ‘a UN-determined “right of return”, the future of Jerusalem that both sides want as capital and the long-term status of the settlements, have not been erased.
Then bitterness takes hold. And Israel’s expansion of the West Bank settlement project continues. Now, more than 400,000 Israelis live in the West Bank – which has always been contested by the Obama-Biden government, but adopted by Trump. And, with the fourth Israeli election in two years coming up in March – many believe it is a way for Netanyahu to solidify his conservative support.
In the first 20 days of this year alone, before the inauguration of Biden, Israel announced plans to build another 3,352 homes in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Von Burgsdorff told CNN that he estimated that the EU, and bilateral donations, to Palestinians by European nations was about $ 780 million a year.
Without faith that Israel and the Palestinians will carry out the peace process, there is widespread recognition by European diplomats that their money is being spent to keep Palestinians out of poverty and to dilute the influence of radical groups like Hamas, which governs Gaza. , and is dedicated to the destruction of Israel.
“This is the money that the Israelis would have to find, as they do not take responsibility for ensuring the economic and social welfare of the 5 million Palestinians who have been under occupation since 67,” said von Burgsdorff.
This is not a responsibility that Israel accepts. The Oslo agreements gave the responsibility of the majority of Palestinians to the Palestinian Authority, the Israeli authorities argue.
This left the PA, as well as the Palestinian Liberation Organization, which represents the Palestinians in negotiations with Israel, looking increasingly powerless to achieve independence.
Shtayyeh, who will face the elections in May, led his own delegation in Humsa.
Since you’ve achieved so little, maybe it’s time to dissolve the PA and give up? CNN asked him.
“We have spent all our lives fighting for an independent Palestinian state that is sovereign, viable and contiguous on the borders of 67, with Jerusalem as its capital. We got something. We haven’t achieved everything. The Palestinian Authority is not a gift from the Israelis to us. This is the culmination of our sacrifices, so we continue to give hope to our people, “he replied.
But that “hope” meant little to Aysha abu Awwad when the storm blew and she was gently led to a tent donated by the Red Crescent while younger members of her clan struggled with tarps and the rain began to fall.
Abeer Salman contributed to this report.