(Adnkronos) – In response to reports regarding a confidential request for the issuance of an international arrest warrant by the International Criminal Court, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich announced that he would immediately sign an evacuation order for the Bedouin village of Khan al-Ahmar in the West Bank. “The issuance of arrest warrants against the prime minister, the defense minister, and the finance minister is a declaration of war, and in the face of a declaration of war, we will respond in kind,” Smotrich stated during a press conference, threatening to target the Palestinian Authority, which he accused of being behind the international legal initiative. “I will sign a decree for the evacuation of Khan al-Ahmar within my powers. I promise all our enemies that this is just the beginning,” he added.
“The hands are the hands of The Hague, but the voice is the voice of the Palestinian Authority. This organization has unleashed a war and will face a war. I am not a submissive Jew.” The Bedouin village in question is home to several dozen families from the Jahalin tribe, expelled from their homeland in the Negev and forced to relocate to the West Bank in the 1950s. Khan al-Ahmar has become an international symbol of the Israeli-Palestinian battle for control of Area C, the part of the West Bank assigned to full Israeli control by the Oslo Accords. Approximately 250 people live in the small village.
