Israel demolishes more Palestinian homes, commercial centers in West Bank

Palestinian media, citing local sources, reported on Sunday that Israeli bulldozers flattened three commercial buildings in the al-Quds neighborhood of Jabal al-Mukabbir. The report said the staff of the Israeli municipality, under tight protection by police, first cordoned off the area around the buildings and then called in bulldozers for the demolition of a grocery store, a bakery shop and a car-wash workshop.

Israeli authorities also forced a Palestinian citizen to demolish his home. They left Ramzi Shawamreh no choice but to totally knock down his own home in Beit Hanina neighborhood. The municipality had ordered Shawamreh to raze his building and if he refused to do as ordered, demolition crews from the municipality would do the job, and in that case, he would have to pay the sum of thousands of shekels as demolition costs.

Israeli authorities also issued and delivered demolition orders for three homes, a livestock barn and retaining walls in the village of Walaja in Bethlehem.

Throughout the years, Israel has frequently demolished Palestinian homes, claiming that the structures have been built without permits. The regime even orders the Palestinian owners to tear down their own homes or pay the demolition costs to the municipality.

The United Nations reported a 21-percent increase in the number of Palestinian structures that were confiscated or destroyed last year.

Nearly 700,000 Israelis live in illegal settlements built since the 1967 occupation of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and East al-Quds.

The UN Security Council has in several resolutions condemned the Tel Aviv regime’s settlement projects in the occupied Palestinian land.