On Tuesday, February 8, 2022, the Israeli army expelled seven Palestinian families from their homes in the northern Jordan Valley, northeast of the occupied West Bank.
The army ordered expulsion, saying the area was being cleared to conduct military exercises.
Moataz Basharat, a senior official who monitors Israeli settlement activities, said that Israeli forces evacuated seven families since the early morning hours under the pretext of conducting military drills.
Basharat pointed out that the exercises are being conducted within residential areas with live ammunition.
He denounced the practices of the Israeli occupation, saying that it “aims to expel Palestinians from the Jordan Valley in profit of settlement expansion.”
Notably, these exercises cause significant damage to the residents’ crops as military vehicles roam farmland, paving roads through them.
The area of the Palestinian Jordan Valley is about 1.6 million acres and at least 13,000 Israeli settlers live in 38 settlements while more than 65,000 Palestinians live in 34 communities in the region.
