Sewage pool rings West Bank village awaiting demolition

JERUSALEM – A Palestinian Bedouin village slated for demolition is dealing with a large pool of sewage, apparently from a nearby Israeli settlement.

The sewage flowed downhill toward Khan al-Ahmar earlier this week, and on Friday was still pooled in a ravine by the West Bank community’s corrugated tin shacks.

Israel’s Civil Administration in the West Bank said that a sewage pipe burst in the area and the military was dispatching a truck to pump the waste out.

Israel’s Supreme Court recently rejected a final appeal against plans to demolish the village. Israel says Khan al-Ahmar was built illegally and has offered to resettle its residents a few miles (kilometres) away. Palestinians and other critics say the demolition aims to displace Palestinians in favour of Israeli settlement expansion.