HEBEON, Friday, May 28, 2021 (WAFA) – Israeli forces today ordered a halt on the farmland reclamation and house construction in Khallet al-Eidah area, south of the southern West Bank city of Hebron, according to WAFA correspondent.
A sizable Israeli military force barged their way into the area, and handed members of the Jaber family notifications to stop the reclamation of their farmland and a house.
A group of Israeli settlers attempted this morning to storm the area as part of their scheme to seize some 250 donums of Palestinian land, but were confronted and fended off by the local Palestinian landowners, as confirmed by Samer Jaber, who owns a share in the targeted land.
When the settlers failed in their attempt, Israeli soldiers rushed to their protection and handed the orders to the villagers.
Israel demolishes Palestinian houses and structures almost on a daily basis as a means to achieve “demographic control” of the occupied territories.
Israel denies planning permits for Palestinians to build on their own land or to extend existing houses to accommodate natural growth, particularly in Jerusalem and Area C, which constitutes 60 percent of the occupied West Bank and falls under full Israeli military rule, forcing residents to build without obtaining rarely-granted permits to provide shelters for their families.
In contrast, Israel argues that building within existing colonial settlements is necessary to accommodate the “natural growth” of settlers. Therefore, it much more easily gives the estimated 700,000 Jewish Israeli settlers there building permits and provides them with roads, electricity, water and sewage systems that remain inaccessible to many neighboring Palestinians.
Soldiers in the oxymoronically named Civil Administration determine where Palestinians may live, where and when they may travel (including to other parts of the occupied territories like Gaza and East Jerusalem), whether they can build or expand homes on their own land, whether they own that land at all, whether an Israeli settler can takeover that land among others.
Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency (WAFA)