The High Court of Justice accepted the state's claim that residents of the villages in Masafer Yatta near Hebron began squatting in the area after it was declared a firing zone by the Israeli military in 1981
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 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.
In unanimous decision, justices back the army after 20 years of legal wrangling, rejecting Palestinians' arguments that they lived in area before it became a training zone