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Source: https://camera-uk.org/2022/05/23/guardian-grossly-misleads-on-masafer-yatta-evictions/
Guardian Misleads on Evictions from IDF Training Zone
(CAMERA-UK) Adam Levick - Israel's Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the IDF could evict 1,300 Palestinians living in an IDF training zone adjacent to the Judean Desert in the South Hebron Hills of the West Bank, after a legal battle lasting 20 years. A one-sided and extremely tendentious piece by the Guardian's Jerusalem correspondent on the court ruling appeared to promote the "voice of Palestine," rather than provide readers with an accurate and impartial account of the relevant facts. The court determined that the Palestinian petitioners hadn't proved that they lived in the area of Masafer Yatta as permanent residents before the army declared the area a training zone in the early 1980s, but that they only occasionally entered the area during the seasonal migration of their goat herds. The court found that, prior to 1980, there were no permanent residents in the area, and that the Palestinians had not lived there, as was reported, "since the days of the Ottoman empire." The court found that some of the complainants have permanent homes in the nearby village of Yatta, and that the petitioners did not provide any documentation of ownership of the land. Before the court ruling, Palestinians turned down an Israeli compromise offer that would allow them to cultivate the land and herd livestock there on the weekends and Jewish holidays, when the army doesn't conduct drills.