Khan al-Ahmar (, , lit. The Red Caravansary) is a Palestinian village (sometimes referred to as the "Khan al-Ahmar school community") located in the Khan al-Ahmar area of the Jerusalem Governorate of the West Bank. In 2018, there were between 173 and 180 Bedouin, including 92 children,'UK urges Israel not to demolish Khan al Ahmar village east of Jerusalem,' Gulf Times 13 June 2018 living there in tents and huts, upwards of 100 in 2010, with its local school serving the needs of 150 children in the area.David Zonsheine, 'Israel is about to destroy this Palestinian village. Will Britain step in?,' The Guardian 14 June 2018.Jewish Settlements Squeeze Bedouin Enclave National Public Radio, July 23, 2009 Khan al-Ahmar is located between the Israeli settlements of Ma'ale Adumim and Kfar Adumim on the north side of Highway 1, between the junctions with Route 437 and Route 458.
In May 2018, the Israeli High Court of Justice determined that its residents could be evicted. The United Nations, the International Criminal Court, the European Parliament and Amnesty International have stated that the demolition of the village would be a violation of international law, being a breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention, and may amount to a war crime. On 20 October 2018, the Israeli government announced that it would postpone the demolition. Subsequently, it was announced in 2019 that there would be no decision on demolition pending the election of a new government.
On 18 July 2021, the new government Foreign Minister Yair Lapid wrote that "Given that the new government was formed recently, and therefore has not yet been able to examine the issue in depth independently and not relying on the conclusions of the previous government, and considering that this is a particularly sensitive issue," he wanted to conduct an in-depth review and the court was asked for a delay until 14 September 2021. After 8 extensions up to 1 February 2023, the government asked once more for a further 4 month delay until 1 June 2023. The court granted an extension to 1 May for the hearing and to 1 April for the state to file its position.
On 7 May 2023, Israel's Supreme Court denied the Regavim petition, accepting the government's argument that the eviction should be stayed "for current reasons related to the security of a country and its foreign relations" and that the government would itself decide when that would happen.
History Location along a historical road The relatively larger Bedouin village and the other, connected encampments, are all placed along the main road connecting Jerusalem and Jericho. The modern highway follows, with some minor deviations, the very important historical road sometimes known by a biblical name as the "ascent of Adummim" (), which for a while follows the top of a ridge that forms the southern bank of Wadi Qelt and separates it from Wadi Tal‘at ed-Damm, Arabic for the "Valley of the Ascent of Blood". The Ascent of Adummim was known to the Crusaders as the "Ascent of Blood".
British Mandate According to the 1931 census of Palestine conducted by the British Mandate authorities, Khan el Ahmar (Jericho sub district) had a population of 27; 25 Muslims and 2 Christians, in a total of 3 houses.Mills, 1932, p.45
In the 1945 statistics Khan el Ahmar had 16,380 dunams of land, but zero population, according to an official land and population survey.Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics, 1945, p. 25 Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 57 Of this, 538 dunams were used for cereals,Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 103 while 15,842 dunams were classified non-cultivable land.Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 153
After 1948 Many of the families currently living in Khan al-Ahmar, came from the Bedouin Jahalin tribe, when they were expelled from the Negev in 1952 by the Israeli army. They moved the following year to the West Bank, under Jordanian administration, and settled in the area of the old Khan al-Ahmar.
After 1967 In the late 1970s, Khan al-Ahmar found itself incorporated into lands that were assigned to a new Israeli settlement, which became the present-day Maale Adumim. The village is one of the only remaining Palestinian areas within the E1 zone, strategically significant because it connects the north and south of the West Bank.
2009 In July 2009, the Italian aid organization Vento Di Terra, (Wind of Earth) and other volunteers built a school in the village, using the radical tyre-mud earth method,Ben Lynfield, 'Israeli Supreme Court to rule on demolition of West Bank village, ' The National 5 May 2018 to address the needs of the community and the difficulty for children to access other schools within the West Bank. This was the first school the Jahalin community ever had, one under the supervision of the Palestinian Ministry of Education. Emblazoned on its front is a sign reading: "We will remain here as long as the za’atar and the olives remain."
A demolition order was served against the school by the Civil Administration one month after it opened, on the basis that it had been built too close to Highway 1, for which expansion plans have already been approved (although representatives of the State have stated demolition would not be carried out until the village relocation is completed).
Bedouin communities in Area C
Coercive environment The UNHCR annual report (November 2016 through October 2017) on Israel settlements describes a "coercive environment" in Area C: Forcible transfer does not necessarily require the use of physical force by authorities; it may be triggered by specific factors that give individuals or communities no choice but to leave, amounting to what is known as a "coercive environment".
Communities at risk In order to establish and expand Ma’ale Adumim (the situation is similar in the South Hebron Hills and Jordan Valley), hundreds of Bedouins of the al-Jahalin tribe were expelled from where they lived and relocated to a site near the Abu Dis landfill. About 3,000 people in the area still face the threat of expulsion and about 1,400 of these live in the E1 area. According to the UN, Khan al-Ahmar is one of 46 Bedouin communities that the UN considers to be at high risk of forcible transfer in the central West Bank.
Legal conflict The village was slated to be demolished by Israel in February 2010 due to allegations of illegal building.'West Bank village under threat,' Al Jazeera, 22 February 2010 The Israeli state announced plans in September 2012 to relocate the villagers to the an-Nuway'imah area in the Jordan Valley, north of Jericho. The people of Khan al-Ahmar have opposed this plan. Abu Khamiss, a spokesperson for Khan al-Ahmar residents, said in 2015 that the relocation site would be "like a prison for us".
Since 2009, residents of the nearby Israeli settlements of Kfar Adumim, Alon and Nofei Prat, assisted by the settler NGO Regavim,Odeh Bisharat, 'You, the Silent Majority, Go to This Palestinian Village,' Haaretz 4 June 2018 have filed petitions to the Israeli Supreme Court calling for the Israeli military to immediately carry out the standing demolition order against 257 Palestinian structures in the area, including the Khan al-Ahmar school.Court rejects petition to demolish Beduin school , Jerusalem Post A lawyer representing the Bedouin community has also petitioned to overturn the demolition order against the school. UNRWA, which operates an education program in Palestine, has also campaigned to defend the Khan al-Ahmar school, arguing that demolishing the school would "effectively deny the children of the community their education and jeopardise their future". The court has so far rejected both sets of petitioners, leaving the village with standing demolition orders.
In 2015, Palestinian NGO Future for Palestine donated solar panels to provide the village with electricity. In July, the Civil Administration confiscated the solar panels, as well as one which had been in the village for several years.
In September 2017 Israeli military authorities in the West Bank notified the Khan al-Ahmar villagers that their only option would be to move to "Jahalin West", a site near the Abu Dis garbage dump which had been specially allocated for them to that end.'Israel moves to advance forcible transfer of Khan al-Ahmar,' B'tselem 14 September 2014AFP, 'EU blasts new West Bank settlement homes, upcoming demolition of Bedouin village,' The Times of Israel 31 May 2018 A lawyer who filed a petition against the relocation on behalf of the Jahalin tribe says that the land is claimed by Abu Dis residents, and that the area Israel would allocate to each prospective large Bedouin family and their herds there is no more than approximately 250 sq. metres. The Israeli indologist and peace activist David Dean Shulman has described the proposed site as "next to the municipal dump that is now a high hill known simply as “Jabel,” The Hill. No one can live on or near the Jabel. The stench is overpowering, and disease rampant. To dump these human beings on the dump is one of those acts that tell all."David Dean Shulman, 'The school at Khan al-Ahmar,' Mondoweiss 25 June 2018.
2018 Supreme Court decision On 24 May 2018, the Israeli Supreme Court ruled that, starting from June, the Israeli army can move the village to a different location. Justice Noam Sohlberg, himself a resident of an Israeli settlement in the West Bank,'Israel: Army Demolishing West Bank Schools: Could Amount to War Crimes,' Human Rights Watch 25 April 2018 wrote that the grounds for the decision, which rejected a villagers' petition for a stay in the order, was that the residents had unlawfully engaged in building both the school and housing, and that it was not within the court's remit to meddle in the execution of Israeli state laws. David Zonsheine, executive director of the Israeli Human Rights NGO, B'tselem, stated that Israel had failed to connect the township to water, power and sewerage services, and that the villagers had built without permits because Israeli policy is such that it dissuades Palestinian villagers from even trying to obtain licenses to build. Human Rights Watch also reports that the Israeli military does not issue the required permits for building to Palestinians in Area C of the West Bank.'Israel: Army Demolishing West Bank Schools:Could Amount to War Crimes,' Human Rights Watch 25 April 2018:'The Israeli military refuses to permit most new Palestinian construction in the 60 percent of the West Bank where it has exclusive control over planning and building, even as the military facilitates settler construction. The military has enforced this discriminatory system by razing thousands of Palestinian properties, including schools, creating pressure on Palestinians to leave their communities.'Forcible Transfer is a War Crime B'tselem:'Israel attempts to provide legal justification for its actions against these Palestinian communities by arguing that they are "building without permits". This, however, is a disingenuous claim as Israel’s planning policy in the West Bank all but precludes Palestinians from ever receiving the required permits For years Israel has been implementing a plan to forcibly transfer thousands of Palestinians who live in farming-shepherding communities in the West Bank. Focusing on three areas – the Jordan Valley, the South Hebron Hills, and the area east of Jerusalem – it aims to establish facts on the ground that would achieve exclusive de-facto Israeli control in those areas, and eventually facilitate formal annexation.' The effect of the dismantlement and evictions will be, he added, to bisect the West Bank, separating the north from the south.