West Bank: Forced Displacement Debate
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Lillian Jones
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West Bank: Forced Displacement
Lillian Jones Excerpts(3 weeks, 3 days ago)
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Lillian Jones (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Turner. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North (Martin Rhodes) on securing this important debate.
For decades, Palestinians living in the west bank have faced increasing pressure from settlement expansion, home demolitions and military restrictions. Entire communities, such as those in Masafer Yatta and the Jordan valley, are being pushed off their ancestral lands under the pretext of those places being military zones or sites of illegal construction. Yet many of these people have lived there for generations.
Recent weeks have seen intensified actions in Masafer Yatta and Silwan. On 18 June, the Israeli Civil Administration barred all Palestinian building permits in Masafer Yatta, prompting fears of enforced evacuation for roughly 1,200 people—a move that UN experts have called tantamount to forcible transfer, which often violates international law, particularly the fourth Geneva convention, which prohibits the forced transfer of protected populations under occupation.
Beyond the military campaigns, area C in the west bank has seen a notable rise in home demolitions. Between January and April 2025, Israeli authorities razed over 450 structures, displacing at least 445 people, including 112 children. That is a fivefold increase compared with the previous year.
This is not just a political issue: it is a human one. Families are losing their homes, access to water, farmland, education and healthcare, and children are growing up amid trauma and instability. Every demolished home is not just bricks and mortar; it is a life uprooted—a future disrupted. If we are to stand for justice and human dignity, we cannot ignore this reality. The international community must uphold human rights for all, without exception, and demand accountability where those rights are denied.