UN warns Israel against relocating Bedouins

The United Nations’ Palestinian refugee agency has urged the international community to block Israel’s plans to relocate thousands of Palestinian Bedouin from the central West Bank, in fear the move could lead to further violations of UN charter.

Commissioner General Pierre Krähenbühl of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East said on Sunday that the implementation of such a plan would stoke concerns "that it amounts to a 'forcible transfer' in contravention of the Fourth Geneva Convention," banning involuntary population relocation in occupied territory.

"It might also make way for further Israeli illegal settlement expansion, further compromising the viability of a two-state solution," he said in a UNRWA statement.

The plan to expel some 12,500 Bedouin from land east of Jerusalem and resettle them in the town of Nu’eima, which has yet to be built, was revealed over the past two weeks, according to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

"I urge the Israeli authorities not to proceed with the transfer, and I also urge the donor and state community to take a firm stand against it," Krähenbühl added. “The humanitarian impact of the planned transfer could be immense.”  The Bedouin community has continually and expressly opposed its relocation.

A meeting on international aid to the Palestinians is to be held in New York on Monday.

According to UNRWA, most of those slated for resettlement to Jericho, east of Palestinian territory, were registered Palestinian refugees.

The Israeli military's department responsible for civil affairs in the occupied West Bank said there were various plans to rehouse Bedouin and they were being conducted in consultation with community leaders.

"As part of the effort to draft master plans for the benefit of the area's Bedouin population, whose purpose is to enable the Bedouin to live in places with suitable infrastructure, dozens of meetings were held with Bedouin leaders," according to  AFP.

"Several plans to prepare such places have been advanced, partly through such meetings," continued the military’s statement.

Many of the Bedouin targeted for transfer have resided in their current locations for decades, having fled to the area from their traditional ancestral lands as a result of the 1948 Arab-Israeli conflict and are unable to go back, according to the UNRWA. Following the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, these communities have witnessed the growth of Israeli settlements around them.

Al Jazeera and wires services