Israels Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld an order to raze a Palestinian Bedouin village in the occupied West Bank, after debating petitions challenging the decision. "We reject the petitions" against the directive to demolish Khan al-Ahmar, the supreme court panel said in its ruling, adding that a temporary order preventing the razing of the village during court hearings "will be cancelled within seven days from today." The present village consists mainly of makeshift structures of tin and wood, as is generally the case with Bedouin sites. In May, the Supreme Court rejected a final appeal against its demolition after nine years of hearings before various tribunals. The fate of Khan al-Ahmar, east of Jerusalem, has drawn heavy international attention, with the United Nations and others expressing grave concern, and has become a rallying cry for the Palestinians, whose leaders have gathered there to protest its planned demolition. Israel claims the village, an encampment of corrugated shacks outside the Kfar Adumim settlement, was illegally built and has offered to resettle residents 12 kilometers, about 7 miles, away. But critics say its impossible for Palestinians to get building permits and that the demolition is meant to make room for an Israeli settlement. The three judges hearing the appeal said they were presented no evidence to warrant overturning the previous verdict and there was no question over the illegality of the construction on the site. Activists say the villagers had little alternative but to build without Israeli construction permits that are almost never issued to Palestinians in the large parts of the West Bank where Israel has full control over civil affairs. Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who oversees the occupation of the West Bank, praised the judges for their decision in the face of "the coordinated hypocrisy attack by (Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas) Abu Mazen, the left and European states." "No one is above the law. No one can stop us from implementing our sovereignty and responsibility as a state," he said. The village is in the 60 percent of the West Bank known as Area C, which remains under exclusive Israeli control and is home to dozens of Israeli settlements. Israel places severe restrictions on Palestinian development there and home demolitions are not unusual. As part of interim peace deals in the 1990s, the West Bank was carved up into autonomous and semi-autonomous Palestinian areas, known as Areas A and B, and Area C, which is home to some 400,000 Israeli settlers. The Palestinians say that Area C, home to an estimated 150,000 to 200,000 Palestinians, is crucial to the economic development of their future state. Israel says the structures that make up the Khan al-Ahmar encampment, which include an Italian-funded school, pose a threat to residents because of their proximity to a highway. But critics have dismissed this claim as a ploy to remove the villages 180 or so residents to clear the way for new Jewish settlements. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights office has called on Israel to abandon its plans and said the destruction of private property by an occupying power violates international law. The West Banks Arab Bedouin are a small, impoverished minority among the broader Palestinian population. Like many other Bedouin encampments, residents of Khan al-Ahmar live in corrugated shacks or tents, often without electricity or running water, and raise livestock. The Palestinian ministry of education recently decided to start the school year early for 170 elementary students in Khan al-Ahmar and four nearby Bedouin communities to try and preempt any Israeli move.