OM Haitham and her children stand by the eucalyptus tree her father planted 80 years ago. She climbed the tree as a girl, her children Handhala and Ibrahim have played around it.

Haitham hoped her grandchildren would play there too.

When a demolition crew arrived in November, a friend tried to stop them by blocking the road with his car. It didn’t work, and Haitham was ill for months afterwards. She says she hadn’t even received a demolition order. “They broke us,” she says.

Haitham’s family are amongst the Palestinians whose lives have been changed for good as Israel continues to annexe their land.

The hilly strip of West Bank land between Israel and the River Jordan is the subject of a geographical and political division between Israel and Palestine. It was seized by Israel from Jordan following war in 1967 and had previously been held by the British and Ottoman empires. However, it’s been home to Palestinian Arabs for generations and now has a population of around three million.

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Israeli settlers began moving on the land after the war in 1967 and numbers have increased ever since, despite the illegality of the practice under international law.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu now plans to annex Palestinian land in a move condemned by much of the international community.

It had been thought that this might begin from yesterday, with Israeli sovereignty applied to Jewish settlements and the Jordan Valley in an action Palestinians say will destroy their hopes for the creation of secure, prosperous statehood in the future. However, Netanyahu says it will start “in the coming days”.

Boris Johnson is amongst the international leaders urging him to change this plan, writing in the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper that the move “would put in jeopardy the progress that Israel has made in improving relationships with the Arab and Muslim world”. He said: “I profoundly hope that annexation does not go ahead. If it does, the UK will not recognise any changes to the 1967 lines, except those agreed between both parties.”

In the village of Rantis, 98-year-old Abu Saleh has old maps in his home charting the change that’s already happened. He says: “Annexation has been happening my entire life. Our history is marked by loss. So many lives, destinies and names lost.

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“Every street, every family, every house is listed on these maps. We don’t know what tomorrow will bring. Israel will eventually do what it wills to do. But if people can continue to live their lives decently, no longer imprisoned, maybe that will be good.

“European states are serving Israel. They cannot take a people and leave them locked up. We don’t forget our country. We have played our part in the wrongdoing. Believe strongly in your homeland. This is what I tell my young.”

Shane Stevenson, Oxfam’s country director in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, said: “Millions of Palestinians worldwide have been betrayed by the international community.

“Whether annexation takes place today or tomorrow, incrementally or in swathes, it will throw Palestinian families into indefinite limbo.

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“It will see Palestinians in areas under threat face an increase in discriminatory legal regimes, raids on their homes, separated families, limited access to basic services, more checkpoints, walls and fences, further limiting Palestinians’ already restricted freedom of movement and ultimately fall further into poverty.”