On the sun-baked, windswept, near-barren hills of the southern West Bank, a thousand Palestinian villagers are braced for the final act in a long drama that could sweep away a tradition of goat-herding and cave-dwelling in an area designated as an Israeli military training zone.

In a little over two weeks, Israel's supreme court will hear an appeal on behalf of the villagers against the planned evacuation of eight communities in the South Hebron Hills. If the 13-year legal battle over Firing Zone 918 ends in Israel's favour, the bleat of goats will be replaced by the crack of assault rifles and the villagers will be moved into a nearby town. The Israeli government's position is that, as a military training zone including live fire, the area is not a suitable environment for permanent residence.

In the past week, support for the villagers has come from an unexpected source: 25 of Israel's best-known authors signed a petition calling for the communities to be saved. Written by the internationally acclaimed novelist David Grossman, the appeal's signatories include Amos Oz, AB Yehoshua, Meir Shalev and Sayed Kashua.

"For the past 20 years, Israel has been actively expelling and displacing the inhabitants of the South Hebron Hills villages," it says. "These villagers have always practised a unique lifestyle: most of them are cave-dwellers and find their livelihood in sheep and goat-herding and small crop farming. Over these years, they have suffered unceasing harassment by the Israeli army and settlers ... They live in constant fear, helplessly facing a ruthless power that does everything to displace them from the home they have inhabited for centuries."

It goes on: "In a reality of ongoing occupation, of solid cynicism and meanness, each and every one of us bears the moral obligation to try to relieve the suffering, do something to bend back the occupation's giant, cruel hand."

Credit: Observer graphics

The area of 12 square miles was designated a military training zone by Israel in the 1980s, but it was not until 1999 that action was taken to clear the land of its inhabitants.

The villagers were forcibly evicted, all structures were demolished and inhabited caves were filled with rubble and blocked up. But a court injunction allowed some villagers to return pending a decision on a legal challenge to the evictions. The case was frozen from 2005 until last year, leaving the threat of forced removal and demolitions.

It is a remote and undeveloped landscape, rolling towards the Negev desert. Tarpaulin tents and breeze-block shelters are scattered over the dry, stony hills. There are almost no paved roads, and none of the villages is connected to a water supply or the electricity grid. Families depend on a few solar power panels donated by European governments and aid groups, rare rainwater and expensive water supplies brought in by tractor from the nearest town. During the long, arid, summer months, families spend almost half their income on water for themselves and their livestock.

Meanwhile, hardline Israeli settler outposts on the edge of Firing Zone 918 are hooked up to water and power, served by paved roads and protected by the Israeli army. The Palestinian villagers and their livestock are subject to frequent intimidation and violent beatings by the radical settlers; tyres have been slashed. For several years, village children have been given a court-ordered army escort on their walk to school following abuse and stone-throwing by settlers.

"This is a group of poor and miserable people who are being constantly harassed and attacked – and my country's army is obeying the command of the settlers in this area," Meir Shalev, an award-winning novelist and one of the signatories to the authors' petition, told the Observer. "These people are being driven away, and if you have some kind of heart it's something you should protest against."

The villagers' Israeli lawyers say the land's ownership is not in question. "I have three huge files of land ownership in this area. It's not disputed that this is privately-owned land," said Shlomo Lecker.

The Israeli state attorney told the supreme court last year that the land was needed for military training, and that the villagers' permanent residence was incompatible with exercises involving live fire. But critics say that the context of Firing Zone 918 is the Israeli government's desire to clear "Area C" – the 60% of the West Bank under full Israeli control – of Palestinians by moving residents into towns in "Area A", the 18% of the West Bank under full Palestinian Authority control. Under international humanitarian law, the transfer of occupied populations is forbidden unless it is temporary and in the context of active hostilities.

Mahmoud Hamamdeh, the chief of Mufaqara village, which faces multiple demolition orders, said the communities lived in "dignity and honour" until "the cancer of settlements began". Using the Arabic word for steadfast perseverance, he added: "Israel may destroy our cement, but it will never destroy our sumud."

Shalev said he hoped the authors' petition would awaken the Israeli public to the Palestinian villagers' plight, but was doubtful of its impact. "Israeli society has become deaf and blind to the moral aspects of the occupation. Today there are more Israelis active in the rights of street cats in Tel Aviv than these poor people in caves," he said.