Eight ambassadors to Israel have written to the Israeli military accusing it of breaking international humanitarian law by confiscating shelters for Bedouins in the occupied West Bank that were paid for by European governments.

The letter, sent privately to Maj Gen Yoav Mordechai earlier this month – and leaked to the Guardian – refers to two incidents in May and June of this year in which shelters funded by EU governments for Bedouins in the occupied territories were confiscated.

The first incident took place on 16 May when the Israeli civil administration dismantled and confiscated “materials for 10 residential caravans in the community of Jabal al Baba, displacing 49 people” from what the letter describes as a “vulnerable” Bedouin community.

The second incident referred to the “dismantling and confiscation” of seven caravans in Sateh el Bahir, six of which were being used as homes and the seventh as a kindergarten. Six families, numbering 26 individuals, were displaced.

The letter is the latest evidence of growing tension between donor governments and Israel over EU aid to threatened Bedouin communities in the part of the occupied Palestinian territories designated as Area C, where Israel has full security and administrative control.



According to a UN report from 2014, about 7,000 Palestinian Bedouins were living in Area C, 60% of of them children. Most of the families have demolition orders pending against their homes and more than 85% lack connection to the electricity and water networks. Bedouins who make their living from herding are also disproportionately among the 6,000 Palestinians who have been displaced since 2008.

Signed by the ambassadors to Israel of Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Belgium, Sweden, Germany, Ireland and Norway, the letter describes the confiscated items as being “provided as part of a broader humanitarian intervention for vulnerable Palestinian households” coordinated by the UN and representing a loss of $64,500 (£49,000) to the donor governments.

“The people living in the two affected communities,” the letter adds, “are among the most vulnerable in the West Bank. These confiscations as well as previous demolitions, compounded by the inability of humanitarian agencies to deliver relief items to the affected households, create a coercive environment that potentially pressures them to leave their current sites against their will.

“If that scenario materialises, the UN expresses its concern that it may amount to forcible transfers, which are considered a grave breach of international humanitarian law.

“Under international humanitarian law, Israel is required – as the occupying power – to meet the basic needs of the population,” they write, adding that “relief items should not be requisitioned, confiscated, expropriated or interfered with in any way”.

According to one diplomat whose government was involved with the letter, there had been “no official reply”. The source added: “We’ve had no response but through backdoor contacts it has been hinted that the demolitions will continue.”

The issue of buildings funded both by the EU and individual European donors in the occupied territories – in particular, for Bedouins – has become a source of mounting conflict.

Israel, which is unwilling to give building permits or wider planning in large parts of Area C, regards the buildings as illegal structures and the Israeli civil administration has been under growing political pressure from both rightwing politicians and NGOs to push ahead with demolitions around Jerusalem and in the Jericho governorate, where the two incidents referred to took place, as well as in communities in the south Hebron hills.

The latest letter follows a call in January by all of the EU’s 28 member states for Israel to allow the Palestinians to develop Area C of the West Bank, warning then that actions against the Palestinians, such as demolitions and confiscation – including of EU-funded projects – were an obstacle to peace.