Activists decry Israeli verdict

Jerusalem – Israeli civil rights groups on Thursday denounced a High Court decision that approved the eviction of roughly 1 000 Palestinian villagers to make way for a military training zone.

Residents of eight villages had been in court for around 20 years fighting the Israeli government efforts to evict them.

The case of Masafer Yatta – or Firing Zone 918 – an agriculture area near Hebron in the occupied West Bank, has been one of Israel’s longest-running legal battles. Israel captured the territory from Jordan in the Six-Day War. –