Israeli authorities demolished or seized some 69 Palestinian-owned structures in the occupied territories, displacing over 80 people, and otherwise affecting nearly 600, said the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in the occupied Palestinian territory in its Protection of Civilians report covering the period between 19 January and 1 February 2021.
Citing the lack of building permits, the Israeli authorities demolished or seized 69 Palestinian-owned structures, displacing 80 people, and otherwise affecting nearly 600. All but one of the demolished structures, and all people displaced, were recorded in Area C of the West Bank.
Forty-five structures, about 70 percent, were in four Jordan Valley communities. One structure was demolished in Al Walaja village (Bethlehem), within the municipal boundary of Jerusalem.
In Humsa al Bqai’a (Jordan Valley), 25 residential and animal shelters were confiscated on 1 February, displacing 55 people, including 32 children; most of the structures had been provided as humanitarian assistance in response to a mass demolition in the same community on 3 November 2020.
Other demolitions and confiscations were carried out in the southern West Bank. In the community of Umm Qussa, located in a declared military zone in Hebron, a mosque and a water cistern were demolished, and a water network was damaged under Military Order 1797, which allows for demolitions after 96 hours of the issuance of a ‘removal order.’ The network damage has affected 450 residents’ access to water.
Also in Hebron, in Khashem ad Daraj, five families received temporary eviction orders on 31 January, instructing them to leave their residences for four days, to make way for military training.
The Israeli authorities uprooted and destroyed thousands of trees near the city of Tubas, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Agriculture. The trees had been planted eight years ago as part of a project supervised by the Palestinian Ministry of Agriculture.
The Israeli authorities also bulldozed nearly 1,000 privately-owned trees in the Khallet an Nahla area in Bethlehem. Both incidents took place on the grounds that the land had been declared ‘state land.’
Israeli forces carried out 159 search-and-arrest operations and arrested 177 Palestinians across the West Bank. The Jerusalem governorate recorded the highest number of operations (35), mostly in East Jerusalem, followed by the Hebron governorate (26).
Seven Palestinians were injured and hundreds of Palestinian-owned trees, and an unknown number of vehicles, were vandalized by perpetrators known or believed to be Israeli settlers.
A total of 25 Palestinians were injured across the West Bank in clashes with Israeli forces.
On at least 18 occasions, Israeli forces opened fire near the perimeter fence on the border with Gaza, or off Gaza’s coast, to enforce access restrictions, resulting in the injury of one person in northern Beit Lahiya. The Israeli authorities arrested a man at the Erez Crossing while he was accompanying his wife for treatment in East Jerusalem.
Source : Safa