Poland warned Wednesday that it will respond “together with other countries” after Israeli authorities moved closer to demolishing a Bedouin village in the occupied West Bank, where a Polish NGO has spent years running humanitarian projects funded partly by Warsaw.
“If Israel liquidates Khan al-Ahmar, its residents will become homeless and the effects of three years of work financed by Polish taxpayers’ money will be lost,” the group said in comments carried by the Polish Press Agency.
The Polish Medical Mission, a Krakow-based humanitarian group, said Israeli plans to remove the village would destroy the results of a three-year Polish-backed aid effort and leave residents homeless.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Maciej Wewior said Warsaw would react jointly with other states that oppose the demolition plans.
The case places Poland increasingly visibly inside a widening European dispute with Israel over humanitarian access, West Bank settlements, and the treatment of activists linked to Gaza aid efforts.
Khan al-Ahmar, an internationally recognized symbol of Palestinian displacement in the occupied West Bank, lies east of Jerusalem near the strategic E1 corridor, an area long viewed by Palestinians and European governments as critical to the territorial continuity of a future Palestinian state. Israeli governments have repeatedly argued that the village was built illegally, while critics say its removal would amount to forced transfer under international law.
In a landmark opinion last July, the International Court of Justice declared Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory illegal and called for the evacuation of all settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.