PALESTINIANS have condemned an Israeli court decision that paves the way for the mass eviction of thousands of residents of a rural community in the occupied West Bank. 

On Wednesday a judge ruled that eight villages in Masafer Yatta, a rocky, arid area near Hebron, could be demolished after more than 20 years of legal wrangling. 

The court said that the Palestinians were not permanent residents when the Israeli army first declared it a firing zone in 1981. 

But residents have remained defiant with Mayor of Masafer Yatta Nidal Abu Younis, saying: “We will not leave our homes.”

Local resident Basel Adra said the occupation court ruling meant his community would be destroyed, a decision made at the strike of a pen. 

Speaking to the Morning Star, he condemned the ruling as “dangerous and threatening,” calling for the international community to speak out in defence of the Palestinian land. 

“We have the right to live as human beings,” he said, adding that the Palestinian residents will continue to fight for their rights. 

The community has been subjected to attacks from illegal setters, Mr Adra explained, as he said there was no justice for the Palestinian people with the occupation courts favouring Israelis.

“Because of that they allowed them to always expand settlements and their homes into our land also to build more illegal outposts and farms,” he said. 

Human rights organisation B’Tselem condemned the decision which it said was made by weaving baseless legal interpretation with decontextualised facts.

Mr Adra agreed, saying that Palestinians have lived on the land for hundreds of years, accusing the court of ignoring the evidence proving that assertion and only listening to the Israeli state. 

“There has never been any justice since I was born,” he told the Star. “I live under the control of military laws. The soldiers here control everything about our life.

“If we want electricity, water, roads or to build home, we have to ask them permission and always they’re refusing. They are pushing our life to be more miserable.”

Israeli authorities have demolished or confiscated 217 Palestinian structures in “Firing Zone 918” since 2011, displacing 608 Palestinian residents, according to the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Mr Adra said residents had no choice but to stay and fight, with nowhere else to go should their homes be destroyed. 

“The international community must take action, not merely issue statements of condemnation,” he said.