KHAN AL-AHMAR, West Bank — Any day now, the Israeli Army says, bulldozers will arrive to wipe the West Bank Bedouin community of Khan al-Ahmar off the map.

For decades, Israel has wanted to clear a large section of the West Bank of thousands of Bedouins — who raise sheep and goats east of Jerusalem — to expand Jewish settlements. After a televised eviction in the late 1990s, when soldiers hauled off families and leveled a whole neighborhood, Israeli judges and foreign diplomats helped slow the expulsions.

Now, a ruling by a panel of Israel’s Supreme Court appears to free the government to proceed with the removal of entire Bedouin communities. Advocates for the Bedouins say this would be a war crime: the forced transfer of a population under the protection of the military occupation.

Eid Abu Khamis, 51, Khan al-Ahmar’s leader, said, «I’m asking the international community: Where are the laws?»

Khan al-Ahmar is tucked behind a highway dividing two bustling Israeli settlements: Maale Adumim and Kfar Adumim. Bedouins have made the place their year-round home since at least the 1970s, though some say they were born there even earlier. Their tribe, the Jahalin, had wandered the Negev desert until being expelled by Israel after its establishment in 1948. When they arrived in the uninhabited West Bank, the area was under Jordan’s control.

With Israel’s victory in the Six-Day War in 1967, it expropriated the area as state land. If Israel were to develop the area, it would slice the West Bank into pieces, isolating Arab East Jerusalem and dividing Ramallah in the north from Bethlehem in the south.

Without a jeep or a horse, visitors to Khan al-Ahmar pull over across Route 1, dodge speeding cars, hurdle a metal barrier and climb a rocky hill. There are no electrical lines or water mains. An Italian organization built a school out of mud and used tires in 2009 that about 150 students attend.

«As long as the Bedouins live in these shacks, the right wing believes there will come a time, now or in some years, that they will find a way to kick the Bedouins out,» said Shlomo Lecker, the Bedouins’ lawyer. «The school was the only permanent thing in the area. So it became a symbol: If the school will be there, who knows what will be next?»

Regavim, a pro-settler advocacy group, said the Bedouins’ buildings had been erected without permits. But critics say that Israel almost never approves Palestinian applications for permits.

In the past, Israel’s Supreme Court tended to protect Bedouin communities, often by questioning whether the government was offering an adequate new home. The Khan al-Ahmar Bedouins are to be moved to a cramped spot called Jahalin West, with no room for their herds.

In a decision on May 24, a three-judge panel — two of them current or former settlers — found that what mattered was not the acceptability of the alternative, but whether «the execution of the demolition orders meets legal requirements.»

Israel says Khan al-Ahmar is not only illegal but also unsafe, because of its proximity to Route 1, and the alternative — free plots with water and electrical hookups — will be a marked improvement. But those who were moved to Jahalin West years ago say it has been impossible to sustain their way of life.

Muhammad Abu Khalil said, «The only things we have in our lives is raising our sheep.»

An Israeli court opens the way to removing a village.