AILSA CHANG, HOST:
This month, the Israeli Cabinet voted to disobey a ruling that had been handed down by the country's Supreme Court. That ruling was about media regulations, prompting the court to warn that there would be legal anarchy if its decisions were flouted. Well, now, in spite of that warning, another order issued by the same court has been ignored - this time in the occupied West Bank. NPR's Emily Feng reports.
HILAL DARAGHMEH: (Non-English language spoken).
EMILY FENG, BYLINE: Hilal Daraghmeh shows me around the pile of rubble and broken plastic that was once his home.
DARAGHMEH: (Non-English language spoken).
FENG: He's a Palestinian shepherd here in the north Jordan Valley, a beautifully stark open stretch of the West Bank.
(SOUNDBITE OF SHEEP BLEATING)
FENG: And his family is one of the few remaining Palestinian families left in this part of the Jordan Valley. The rest have fled because of Israeli settlers.
DARAGHMEH: (Non-English language spoken).
FENG: Daraghmeh thought he had some protection, however - an order from Israel's highest court halting demolitions for his family's home until mid-July.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Non-English language spoken).
FENG: But on the morning of July 2, video here taken by Daraghmeh and Israeli activists show five mass settlers showing up with a bulldozer.
(SOUNDBITE OF BULLDOZER CLANKING)
FENG: And two of the videos they filmed show four Israeli soldiers standing right in front of the settlers...
(SOUNDBITE OF DEMOLITION)
FENG: ...Looking on as the settlers tear down Daraghmeh's shelters and a cattle pen.
(SOUNDBITE OF FOOTSTEPS)
FENG: All that's left are piles of rubble, the remains of their home, broken water tanks littered everywhere.
Settler attacks against Palestinians are increasing. Israel's army recorded a 50% jump last year in severe settler attacks compared to the year before. A report from this month from two human rights groups in Israel found about a fifth of the land in the West Bank - what is supposed to be territory for a future Palestinian state - is now effectively controlled by Israeli settlements. So the attacks the Daraghmeh family face in the Jordan Valley are not new, but the defiance of a high court order is.
KHEIRIEH SULEYMAN: (Non-English language spoken).
FENG: "We had a court order, but what happened?" Kheirieh Suleyman, Hilal's mother, asks. "They tore down everything with no notice anyways." The Israeli military and COGAT, a military agency which administers part of the West Bank, did not respond to an NPR request for comment on the demolitions.
SULEYMAN: (Non-English language spoken).
FENG: Suleyman says she's been sleeping on the hard ground with no shelter at night.
AHMAD ABU MOHSEN: (Non-English language spoken).
FENG: Their neighbor, Ahmad Abu Mohsen, says he is fearful he will be forced out next. He grazes his sheep about 2 miles away, but the same settlers have been fencing off the lands his flock grazes on.
MOHSEN: (Non-English language spoken).
FENG: Both he and his neighbors say they've been handcuffed and detained by Israeli police for hours - several times - after trying to let their livestock out.
MOHSEN: (Non-English language spoken).
FENG: And now he says he's just received a demolition order from Israel's military declaring his grazing land a military area, and thus off-limits. He says he's working with a lawyer to get a suspension order. But they tore down your neighbors' houses even with a court order, I say. He shrugs. There's nothing else he can try. Emily Feng, NPR News, Ain al-Hilweh in the occupied West Bank.
(SOUNDBITE OF JONUFF SONG, "LAZY LAND") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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