The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) condemns in the strongest terms the demolition by the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) of 38 residential, service, and agricultural structures on Wednesday, 2 September 2026, in al-Tabban village in Masafer Yatta, southern Hebron, in the southern West Bank. The demolitions left eight Palestinian families, comprising 58 individuals, including 26 children and 30 women, homeless. They have been deprived of their homes, sources of livelihood, and other basic necessities of life.

This crime forms part of an ongoing and systematic Israeli policy targeting the Palestinian presence in Masafer Yatta through the demolition of homes and other structures, the destruction of water sources and livelihoods, and increasingly severe restrictions on construction and development. These measures are accompanied by escalating settler attacks, seizure of agricultural land, and the establishment of settlement outposts across the West Bank. Taken together, these practices serve the same purposes and produce the same results as Israel’s policy of creating facts on the ground and entrenching permanent Israeli control over large parts of the occupied West Bank, thereby constituting practical steps towards its annexation.

According to field information collected by PCHR’s field researcher, on Wednesday morning, the IOF demolished 12 residential rooms and one residential tent, seven barracks, livestock pens and a livestock tent, five water wells, seven bathrooms, two kitchens, two clay ovens, a fodder warehouse, and water storage structures with a total capacity of approximately 500 cubic meters. The targeted residential structures covered a total area of approximately 547 square meters and had been sheltering the eight Palestinian families affected by the demolitions. The demolitions also destroyed structures used for livestock farming, including seven livestock barracks, pens, and a tent, as well as a fodder storage facility. Livestock farming is a primary source of livelihood for the targeted families.

PCHR’s field documentation confirms that the targeted structures were built between 2002 and 2015, with the oldest structure dating back to 2002 and the most recently constructed one dating to 2015. These findings demonstrate that the structures have been in place for many years and form an established part of the residential and living environment of the affected residents, refuting any characterization of the families’ presence in the area as temporary or recent.

This demolition follows years of Israeli measures targeting residents of al-Tabban village and other Palestinian communities across Masafer Yatta. On 7 June 2022, the Israeli occupation authorities issued notices entitled “Granting an Additional Opportunity to Challenge Demolition Orders.” The notices concerned homes and other structures belonging to residents of the village, whose original demolition orders had been issued in 2003, 2015, 2017, and 2020. Under the most recent orders, the Israeli occupation authorities gave residents only three days to file objections. The orders covered a range of residential and agricultural structures throughout the village.

According to testimony provided to PCHR’s field researcher by Nidal Younis Abu ‘Aram, Head of the Masafer Yatta Village Council, residents applied for building permits after receiving stop-work orders concerning their homes and other structures. The Israeli authorities rejected their applications and subsequently issued demolition orders against the structures. The residents then petitioned the Israeli High Court, seeking the cancellation of the demolition orders. The Court subsequently issued interim orders suspending their implementation pending the preparation of a detailed planning scheme for the area.

He added that, “in response, the residents prepared a detailed planning scheme as required and submitted it to the Israeli Planning and Construction Department. However, the Israeli occupation authorities rejected the scheme before issuing the recent notices concerning the demolition orders. After exhausting all available legal avenues, the residents’ legal representative once again petitioned the Israeli High Court, seeking protection for their homes and property. However, in June 2026, the Court rejected the petition, paving the way for the implementation of the demolition orders that were carried out in the village today.

It should be noted that the Israeli occupation authorities continue to pursue a policy of forcibly displacing residents of Masafer Yatta, following the Israeli High Court’s decision issued in May 2022, which authorized the IOF to forcibly evacuate residents of several villages in Masafer Yatta from their lands and homes under the pretext of using the area as a military training zone. Since the issuance of that decision, the Israeli authorities have escalated their measures against residents, while settlers have continued to establish settlement outposts, seize agricultural land, and carry out attacks against residents and their property.

PCHR emphasizes that these measures reveal a comprehensive system in which the Israeli occupation authorities use planning, zoning, demolition orders, and judicial measures as tools to control the land and reshape its demographic character. By denying Palestinians building permits, rejecting their planning schemes, and subsequently issuing and enforcing demolition orders, the Israeli planning regime in the occupied Palestinian territory is being transformed into a tool for excluding the Palestinian population from their land and forcibly displacing them.

PCHR stresses that the destruction of residents’ homes, water sources, and agricultural and livestock structures, while excluding them from the planning and building process, constitutes systematic pressure on the population aimed at forcing them to leave their residential areas. PCHR is concerned that the continuation of this policy will ultimately lead to the depopulation of parts of Masafer Yatta of their Palestinian residents, while preparing the land for further expansion of settlements and settlement outposts and for their integration into the Israeli-controlled network in the West Bank.

PCHR emphasizes that such practices cannot be viewed in isolation from a broader policy through which Israel seeks to impose facts on the ground, as well as legal and administrative realities, that prevent Palestinians from exercising their rights to land, housing, and development, while entrenching Israel’s control over the occupied Palestinian territory. In essence, this trajectory constitutes a gradual process of annexation of the West Bank, in direct violation of the rules of international law, which prohibit an occupying power from taking measures that result in permanent changes to the status of the occupied territory or the forcible transfer of its population.

In light of the above, PCHR calls upon the international community to take immediate and effective action to protect Palestinian communities in Masafer Yatta, prevent the implementation of further forced displacement operations, halt the crimes committed by Israel and settlers in the occupied Palestinian territory, and bring to an end the regime of apartheid and settler colonialism imposed by Israel on the Palestinian people.

PCHR recalls the advisory opinion issued by the International Court of Justice in July 2024, which affirmed the illegality of Israel’s continued presence in Palestinian territory occupied since 1967and found that Israel is under an obligation to bring its unlawful presence to an end, evacuate settlers and dismantle the settlements.

PCHR calls for serious international action to ensure that perpetrators of war crimes are held accountable before international justice, end the policy of impunity, ensure effective international protection for Palestinian civilians, and halt all forms of political, military, and economic support that embolden Israel to further pursue its unlawful policies and commit grave violations of international law.