ISRAEL will commit a war crime if it demolishes a Palestinian village to make way for an illegal Jewish-only settlement, human rights campaigners said today.

Saleh Higazi, Amnesty International’s deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa, said the destruction of the Bedouin village of Khan al-Ahmar, which was due to go ahead today, would be “not only heartless and discriminatory [but also] illegal.”

The organisation called for an immediate halt to the forcible eviction of Palestinian villagers, pointing out that resettlement programmes are banned under international law, including the fourth Geneva convention.

Khan al-Ahmar, east of Jerusalem, has become the site of protests and resistance, with thousands of people gathering to block its planned demolition.

It has been home to the Jahalin Bedouin tribe for more than 60 years, following their expulsion from their traditional lands in the Negev desert.

The West Bank village is surrounded by illegal Jewish settlements and Israeli authorities have spent years trying to drive the Bedouin off their land. Around 180 residents face being forcibly evicted by the Israeli army and have been offered two alternative homes.

One is a site close to a former Jerusalem rubbish tip near the village of Abu Dis, while the other option lies close to a sewage works near the city of Jericho.

Included in the demolition order is a plan to knock down Khan al-Ahmar’s school, which provides education for around 170 children from five Bedouin communities.

The plans for the destruction of the village have been subject to a number of legal hearings, but Israel’s Supreme Court ruled last month that it had been built without the relevant permission despite such authorisation being impossible to obtain for Palestinians living in the West Bank.

Israel has continued ito expand its illegal settlement programme in the occupied territories despite an international outcry. At least 50,000 Palestinian homes are thought to have been demolished since 1967.

In a joint statement issued with Jewish Voice for Peace, Amnesty International said today: “Israel’s policies of settling Israeli civilians in the occupied Palestinian territories, wantonly destroying property and forcibly transferring Palestinians living under occupation violate the fourth Geneva convention and are war crimes listed in the statute of the International Criminal Court.”

The groups emphasised that the destruction of Khan al-Ahmar “amounts to a war crime.”

“Israel must end its policy of destroying Palestinians’ homes and livelihoods to make way for settlements,” they added.