Several sofas sat around the embers of a fire inside the rectangular outline of what had once been a rudimentary house.
The large delegation of European ambassadors came in a convoy of SUVs meandering along a dirt track through the nearby Jewish agricultural settlement, Ro’I, last week.
They parked at a discreet distance from Israeli troops looking from the eastern edges of what had been a household. Diplomats chose their way through the twisted remains of corrugated roof panels, broken tents and a lone refrigerator.
They had driven away despair over the continued displacement of Arabs by the West Bank and, more broadly, about the continued expansion of Jewish settlements in areas captured by Israel in 1967.
Aysha Abu Awaad leaves bent with great difficulty. She watched the arrival of diplomats sitting on a pillow under a makeshift canopy and removed the flies from the face of one of her grandchildren who had lingered in a crib.
She says that the last time the Israeli forces came, “they told us that we should leave and that the land belonged to them and they had to train the army here.”
Israel has declared the area a “closed military zone.”
Military officials frequently make this statement when trying to clean up areas of people they say are “occupiers.”
Similarly, Palestinians, who have lived in areas of southern Hebron Hills for years, were forced to leave the village of Jenbah when the area around it was declared a “training area” as part of a shooting range. past.
Upon departure, Israeli armor was filmed by the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem, which ruled over crops and the roofs of houses built into caves.
The Donald Trump administration has broken decades of American politics and said Jewish settlements in the West Bank do not violate international law. This is out of step with the United Nations, the European Union, the United Kingdom and most major interpretations of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which prohibits land confiscation and construction on occupied territory.
President Joe Biden has historically been a friend of Israel and supported the “two-state solution.” But he gave no indication that he would reverse Trump’s views on settlements in his first foreign policy speech as president.
In Humsa, EU Delegate Sven Kuehn von Burgsdorff said: “We are concerned about the policy of demolishing the residential structures of Bedouin communities that have lived here for decades.
“And our concern is very simple. We are here to respect international law, including international military law which prohibits the demolition of residential structures in the occupied territories. It is contrary to the obligations [of Israel] under the Fourth Geneva Convention, evictions or forced transfers as well. Here we are talking about 100 people, of which 40 to 50 are children. We are in the middle of a pandemic, we are in the middle of winter. Where are these homeless people heading for winter? ”
Mark Regev, chief adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, told CNN that the Israeli Supreme Court ruled that the Bedouins here had no claim to the land and insisted that the court was entirely free of political influence and the Palestinian leadership was using it. Bedouins as pawns.
“The Israeli government has been willing to make an extra effort here,” Regev said.
“We offered to move them, we offered to build their homes in another area. I think, for political reasons, residents were not allowed to accept these proposals,” he said.
Regev also said that Israel is a recognized civilian and military power in the “Zone C” of the West Bank, part of the land captured by Israel in 1967, in accordance with the Oslo Accords of the 1990s.
Zone C covers about 60% of the West Bank’s land area, although most Palestinians live either in Zone B, under Israeli military leadership, but in the Palestinian civilian administration, or in Zone A, which is most of the West Bank’s urban areas. , where the Palestinian Authority controls both security and civilian administration.
The Oslo Accords were to be a negotiated process leading to the end of the Israeli occupation and the birth of a peaceful Palestinian state alongside Israel. But, 25 years later, this is a vision that is disappearing.
A group of Bedouin men sat on the ground in front of a ring of delegates and the press, muttering how meaningless the whole scene was.
One rose as Palestinian Authority 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 logjams over the future of Palestinian refugees and their descendants claiming a “right of return” mandated by the UN, the future of Jerusalem that both sides want as their capital and the long-term status of settlements, have not been erased. .
So the bitterness is getting worse. 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 opposed to the Obama-Biden administration, but embraced by Trump. And with Israel’s fourth election in two years in March – many believe it is a way for Netanyahu to strengthen 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 settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Von Burgsdorff told CNN that he estimated that the EU and bilateral donations to the Palestinians by European nations were around $ 780 million a year.
Without any belief that Israel and the Palestinians will advance the peace process, there is general recognition from 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 it is dedicated to the destruction of Israel.
“This is money that Israelis should find differently because they do not take responsibility for ensuring the economic and social well-being of the 5 million Palestinians who have been living under occupation since 67,” von Burgsdorff said.
This is not a responsibility that Israel accepts. The Oslo Accords give the Palestinian Authority the responsibility of the majority of Palestinians, Israeli officials say.
This left the PA, as well as the Palestine Liberation Organization, which represents the Palestinians in negotiations with Israel, showing more and more impotence in achieving independence.
Shtayyeh, who will face the May elections, led his own delegation to Humsa.
Since you have achieved so little, maybe it’s time to dissolve the PA and give up? CNN asked him.
“We have spent our whole lives fighting for an independent, sovereign, viable and contiguous Palestinian state on the borders of 1967, with Jerusalem as its capital. We have achieved something. We have not achieved everything. The Palestinian Authority is not a gift. This is a culmination of sacrifices. so we continue to give hope to our people, “he replied.
But this “hope” meant little to Aysha abu Awwad, as the storm blew and was easily ushered into a tent donated by the Red Crescent, while younger members of her clan fought the tarpaulins and the rain began. to beat.
Abeer Salman contributed to this report.