 Salam from the People's Dispatch Studios here in New Delhi. I'm Siddharth Ani and you're watching The Daily Debrief. On the show today, we're talking about displacement, internal displacement in Israel and in India. And we close with Turkey's continued prosecution, on prosecution also, of the Turkish Medical Association. First up, Israel's new far-right government has reinforced the worst affairs and is set to evict residents of 14 Palestinian villages, a total of over 1,000 Palestinians, including at least 500 children from their homes in the Masafiriya area in the Southern-occupied West Bank. Israel forces informed local authorities about the move on Monday, the 2nd of January, and have already started carrying out individual demolitions. Residents are facing the imminent danger, of course, have been forced out of their homes because of Israel's plans to build a firing range for the military in its locality. At least five houses have already been demolished on Tuesday by Israeli forces and one family was served a notice on Wednesday to vacate their home. This is according to reports coming in from the Wafa Agency. Israeli forces have also been confiscating lands belonging to public utilities such as schools and even water tanks in the area for a sustained period now. Dr Abdul Rahman covers the region for People's Dispatch and joins us now with all the details. Hi Abdul, what is the latest from Masafiriya to Abdul? Well, as per the reports and as per the Twitter feed, it seems that the Israeli forces have given a notice to the residents in Masafiriya. Around 14 villages have been given the notice through their heads, of course, asking them to vacate their home houses as soon as possible because otherwise they are going to forcefully evict them. And there are reports that already they have demolished some houses. They have evicted around four or five families already. There are also reports that they confiscated some tent which basically was used as a temporary school. This school building had been demolished much earlier. There are reports about how Israeli forces are also filling up the water bodies which were dug up all these years because Masafiriya is basically falls in a semi-dry, dry region. And here finding water bodies is difficult. So of course you have to dig wells and all. The Israeli army and authorities have, it seems that they have by-laws decided to go ahead with their plan to create a firing range and displacing thousands of Palestinians from the Masafiriya. And for that they have started taking different kinds of forceful actions. Abdul, this is a case that has been on for 20 years. These plans to build this firing range initially came up back in 1999 and have since then been on hold. Is that legal process now done and dusted? And where do these thousands also Palestinians end up? Well, you rightly pointed out that the case is quite old. It started in 1990s. Immediately after the Oslo peace agreement which was signed in 1994-95 according to which Israel got a kind of exclusive rights over what is called Area C, which is the largest part of the West Bank. Area B, West Bank was divided into three areas, A, B and C. And unlike A and B, Area C, which is the majority of the West Bank, were kind of directly under control of the Israelis. And they decided to create a firing range there. Despite knowing the fact that there are more than 1000 people living there, most of them are shepherds, agricultural farmers. Of course, initially the forcefully evicted most of the people from that region. But some of the NGOs and the people there went to the court and the court kind of revoked the expulsion so the people moved back into the region. Since then the case was going on in different Israeli courts. Finally, it was decided in last year May by the Israeli High Court. Final verdict was given according to which the court accepted the Israeli military's demand or plan to create a firing range, displacing thousands of Palestinians. So yeah, the case has been, it is a final verdict has been given. It was not implemented for all these while because of the confusion related to the government in Israel. It seems now that the new government has taken power and there is a clarity about it, which has a very aggressive agenda of kind of displacing Palestinians, acquiring more and more Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank. So I think this is a part of that particular process which this new government has undertaken to kind of so, and they have a legal code and code excuse also as someone questioned it. I think you and question last year that which court gives priority for firing range over thousands of people, displacing thousands of people, but the Israeli court has done it and this is by a large final. But there are of course resistance by the Palestinians, both online and offline there are groups which are resisting the move and I think it is not going to be easy for the Israelis to kind of implement their plans. Thanks very much Abdul, that's all the time I think we also have today. We move on to India where the story of displacement is never too far from wider politics and the narrative of development and progress. In the North Indian state of Uttarakhand formed in the year 2000 out of Uttar Pradesh, which is of course the most populous province in the country. It is a state with borders China in the north and Nepal to the east and home to about 10 million people. Close to 10% of that population live in the city of Haldwani, which is also an important railhead for the Himalayan parts of the state. On the 5th of January over 50,000 residents of Haldwani had some relief after weeks of distress when a division bench of India's Supreme Court halted the demolition of over 4,300 homes in the Banboor Pura area. Pragya Singh of Newslick joins us with more. Pragya, in the last story we were discussing an Israeli process of building a firing range in a part of Palestine and thereby evicting a thousand people in the process and the United Nations reaction to that by saying what kind of court would pick firing range or prioritize a firing range over the homes of people. It seems that's very much at the centre of the debate that's happening in this North Indian state as well give us a sense of the overall story and where we are in terms of the legal aspects of it at this point. Right, Siddhan. So actually it was a moment of jubilation on 5th of January for a lot of residents of Haldwani. Basically in December 2022 last just about a fortnight ago the high court of the state of Uttarakhand which is a hilly state which means it's very very chilly winter there right now gave an order that people who live in this particular locality in that town can be evicted and they could be evicted using force if necessary within a week. The reason was that the court found that the land that they were you know where their houses were belonged to the railways. Now the genesis of this case itself how it landed up in the court was that an individual in the year 2000 or so filed a public interest litigation. Now the public interest litigation is a very peculiar form of litigation found in India which leads to people trying to enforce the public's fundamental rights but this particular petition was filed to evict these people so that a rail link could be built between the town of Haldwani where these people live about 50,000 of them and where you know the state from which it was removed and carved out in the year 2000 which is Uttar Pradesh. This kind of connection would be built for transporting people from Uttar Pradesh to Uttarakhand which were earlier one state now too. So that is kind of unusual the legal constitutional expert Gautam Bhatti has actually pointed this out recently and his word actually carries a lot of weight where he says that the eviction notice the eviction order was sort of illegal it wasn't constitutional that even if people do not own titles to their land which we are not saying that they don't but even if they do not it doesn't mean that you can sort of pick them up and throw them away. So there was a lot of uproar about the fact that there is going to be this eviction there was a lot of uproar that is going to happen in the winter and also that these people had been living there for some of them for 40, 50 years some of them said they came to this area during the partition of India and also it was said by much of the media couldn't ignore the fact that there were a lot of Muslims who lived there and the Muslims have been in the crosshairs of the BJP which is ruling India and you know which has a right wing agenda based on like a strong Hindu nationalistic agenda so the right wing ecosystem to speak is actually not very happy with the Supreme Court which said yesterday on 5th December that look you cannot do this thousands of people overnight like this and it has scheduled another hearing for 7th February which we have to see what happens there. Right now it is just the state government and other parties to the case who have to file their reply so presumably this will go on for a while. For a while alright which brings us to the next part of the conversation which is that this kind of what's referred to here in India is bulldozer politics you know where you are threatened with literally your home being raised and again it takes us back to what we are talking about with Abdullah and Palestine where it is so much a part of the sort of scenario that there is a section of the right that actually celebrates this and we have seen this on the rise in India in the past to an alarming degree. Absolutely you know this whole idea you see there are several things that play in the Halwani case in the Uttarakhand case one is that you know the notion of development that has been sold by successive governments is to build more roads, build more highways and all of build more train links, build just constantly there is a constant construction going on now India does need roads it needs great connectivity, better connectivity but is there compassion in the ideas that they are proposing does anybody stop to think that someone is losing out so that someone else gains I think that notion now with the current government in power has been completely lost so if you can reach from the capital city to a town in the hills which is a pilgrim town in the same state actually if you can reach it in 6 hours then why not 5 why not 4, why not 3, why not instantly so this what people are not realizing is that somebody is paying the price who might not actually be able to benefit from all these roads and highways you are building the other aspect is that the government's responsibility is to provide housing and livelihood there are government buildings there which includes schools, mosques, temples and you have allowed this to go on for very long because somewhere you did not think that you would reach a point in your politics where only road construction and highways would become a fetish for a certain section, a wealthy section of the society and the poor end up paying the price which is what has been averted here right now I just want to point out another thing, I brought some data I know data is never interesting but here it is from 2014 to now the central government which is the party that has been powered at the center sanctioned 62,700 housing projects out of which 27,000 also were completed in the same state but in the town 4,400 houses were sanctioned out of which it could complete 2,068 houses now you have sanctioned 4,400 houses and the number of houses which you had decided to demolish was 4,300 so the state is building and the state is destroying and one does not know who is gaining or losing and that is actually a very fundamental problem we need to think about development itself and what its goals are but you also need to think about you cannot build and destroy at the same time and justify one by the other absolutely thanks very much Pagya it also brings I think to really front and center the clash of institutions and the political establishment that is ongoing in India over time thanks very much and finally the Turkish government continues its repression of dissent and the functioning of civil society organizations with the prosecution of executives of the Turkish Medical Association which is of course one of the leading progressive and critical collectives of its kind in the entire region PD reported earlier on the incarceration of the association's head Dr. Shabnam Kaurur Financi on charges of spreading propaganda, terrorist propaganda that is on Jan 10th now, Ankara prosecutors will begin hearings against other executives on the vague premise of being members of a terrorist organization Anabrachar of the People's Health Movement spoke to me earlier via video conference and has more details Ana good to see you back on Daily Debrief an important week ahead for the Turkish Medical Association two important court hearings happening on the 10th and then the 11th tell us a little bit about where things stand in terms of the government and the stand that it has taken of course against the head we know but also the association itself yes that's right so if you remember at the end of October we already reported about a crackdown on the Turkish Medical Association in Turkey so the important bit is to highlight is that the Turkish Medical Association is one of the most progressive professional organizations in health that we can see in the world today it has been spearheading very progressive stances and the stances in support of peace since many many years and for that they have been attacked by the government on many occasions so on this last occasion what we are seeing now is that there is an apparent attempt to replace the leadership of the TMA by a temporary leadership which would then lead to election and the election of course could lead to anything if barring that opposition is mounted to what the government is attempting to do so one of the most important thing to notice here is that the TMA will appear in court so actually the members of the Central Committee of the Turkish Medical Association will appear in court next week on January 10th in Ankara so this will be a further step in the attempt to replace them we don't know at the moment what's going to happen on the 10th so there could be a decision to go ahead with this plan there could also be an attempt to prolong the process because by prolonging the process of course the association is stressed and weakened in a way to push them away from the other things that they are doing right and are there any charges that have been framed at this point what are they responding to or what are they sort of facing when they go up in court well the news is from just ahead of New Year's is that the government had ready charges for terrorism and supporting terrorist organizations against all members of the Central Committee but the important thing is that these charges have not been pursued yet so these are things that are ready and that members of the Turkish Medical Association expect to happen quite soon but at the moment the procedure is well it's actually procedural it's an attempt to say that the leadership is not legitimate that it should be replaced and that another round of elections should be put in place All right Ana how does this fit in with the wider sort of political scenario in Turkey at the moment it's an election year of course so everything presumably gets up to that end yes that's right and that's also what you know what we've been hearing from many professional organizations close to the TMA but outside of Turkey so and of course it's important to remember that this whole story started with the arrest of Dr. Şevnen Financı who is the elected chairperson president of the Turkish Medical Association she's a well-known forensic expert and physician so you know she's been involved in many peace initiatives she has been involved in many initiatives that are oriented towards protecting other freedoms including the freedom of press and so Dr. Financı is still being held in custody since October there have been a couple of court hearings in the meantime the next one is going to happen only one day after after the hearing of the Turkish Medical Association so on January 11th and even in this case it's quite unclear what's going to happen so this is a case being pursued in the criminal court because Dr. Financı is facing charges of spreading terrorist propaganda after talking about a possible use of chemical weapons in Kurdistan so what's happening here is that and of course this is not official information no one is going on record to say that but the implications are that the current Terdogan government is trying to weaken the organizations that have a very strong record of pursuing policies that are the opposite of what the government is wanting to see that have been successful in achieving those and they're doing it by different means so you know if we look at the last one and a half years the Turkish Medical Association led by Dr. Financı has been one of the main supporters of health workers actions they have been coordinating strikes and other actions in many parts of Turkey and these actions have been important not only for the rights of the health workers but also for access to health care in Turkey which has been deteriorating as in other parts of the world Thank you so much for that update and of course we'll ask you to track that story for us that's the most important developments expected next week of course and have you back on the show to talk about updates when you have them Thanks That's all we have on this episode of The Daily Debrief as always we invite you to head to our website peoplesdispatch.org for details on these stories as well as all the other work we do we also ask you of course to follow us on the social media platform of your choice if you haven't already we'll be back again same time same place tomorrow until then thank you for watching you