PALESTINIANS have condemned an Israeli court decision that paves the way for the mass eviction of thousands of residents of a rural community in the occupied West Bank. 

On Wednesday a judge ruled that eight villages in Masafer Yatta, a rocky, arid area near Hebron, could be demolished after more than 20 years of legal wrangling. 

The court said that the Palestinians were not permanent residents when the Israeli army first declared it a firing zone in 1981.