Over 40 Palestinian homes destroyed in West Bank

Rasa - Israeli military forces have demolished more than 40 Palestinian houses and residential structures in the northeastern part of the occupied West Bank as the Tel Aviv regime presses ahead with its land expropriation policies to uproot Palestinians.

News ID: 3936

Date: 12 February 2016 - 15:19

RNA - On Thursday, Israeli soldiers and bulldozers rolled into the hamlets of al-Farisiya and Khallet al-Khader, and leveled seven homes to the ground. The Israeli forces also destroyed 35 structures in the villages of Bardala and Ein al-Beida.

Rabih Khandaqji, the mayor of the nearby city of Tubas, said local and international organizations are trying to help the displaced Palestinians and possibly rebuild their destroyed structures.

The development came only two days after Israeli forces destroyed over 10 Palestinian houses and residential structures in the village of Khirbet Tana, which lies east of Nablus.

Ghassan Daghlas, a Palestinian official who monitors the Israeli regime’s settlement activities, said Israeli officials claimed that the houses and structures had been built illegally in an area declared by Tel Aviv as a “firing zone” for military training.

Rights groups say the demolition of Palestinian homes is in line with Israel’s policy of expansion of illegal settlements and land expropriation.

The United Nations and most countries regard the Israeli settlements as illegal because the territories were captured by Israel in a war in 1967 and are hence subject to the Geneva Conventions, which forbid construction on occupied lands.

The presence and continued expansion of Israeli settlements in occupied Palestine has created a major obstacle for the efforts to establish peace in the Middle East. Palestinians want the West Bank as part of their future independent state, with East al-Quds (Jerusalem) as its capital.

More than half a million Israelis live in over 230 illegal settlements built since the 1967 Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and East al-Quds.

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