Washington – U.S. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said on Wednesday that U.S. President Joe Biden's administration calls on Israel not to evict the Palestinians of the West Bank hamlet of Masafer Yatta.

Responding to Al-Qud's Washington correspondent, Miller said in his daily press conference that "it is very important for Israel and the Palestinian Authority to refrain from unilateral steps that exacerbate tensions and undermine efforts to advance a negotiated two-state solution,” explicitly extending this to demolitions and evictions.

Israel had declared the twelve village of Masafer Yatta in the South Hebron Hills, an area of around 30,000 dunams, as a closed military zone in the early eighties. The declaration of "firing zone 918" did not impinge on the lives of the Palestinian communities, who continued to cultivate their land, until a sudden military eviction of 700 residents in 1999.

The establishment and expansion of settler farms on Palestinian land has cranked up the pressure on authorities to carry out further evictions. 

Last year, an Israeli court ruled to evict the population of Masafer Yatta in what would be the single largest expulsion of Palestinians since 1967. Although the ruling has yet to be implemented, the army has conducted more training activities in the area, and demolitions and arrests have become more common.