Human rights groups criticize Israeli court ruling against Palestinian village

TEL AVIV, Israel – An Israeli court has approved the forced eviction of hundreds of Palestinian Bedouins from the village of Ras Jrabah in the Negev Desert.

The ruling helps the Israeli government make way for the expansion of the Jewish settlement of Dimona.

Human rights groups have condemned the court’s decision.

Amnesty International called the court’s decision a “grave injustice” and a “clear violation of international law.”

Adalah, an Israeli rights advocacy group, has promised to appeal the court’s decision.

Activists call the court ruling a clear example of “ethnic cleansing” and “apartheid” against Israel’s Palestinian citizens.

The residents of Ras Jrabah have lived there for generations, but Israeli authorities do not recognize their village as legal.

According to human rights groups, the Israeli government has long sought to evict Palestinian Bedouins from their homes to make way for Jewish settlements.

Ras Jrabah villagers were also ordered to pay more than $30,000 in court costs.

The Israel Land Authority, which is responsible for managing state land in Israel, has claimed that the Ras Jrabah villagers are “squatters.”

The state of Israel was created largely by ethnic cleansing of more than 700,000 Arabs—sometimes by massacre—and the destruction of hundreds of Palestinian villages, an event Palestinians call the Nakba, or “catastrophe.”