Days of Palestine – Jericho
Israeli occupation forces (IOF) handed on Friday notices to demolish 20 Palestinian-owned houses in Ein ad-Duyuk at-Tahta west of the occupied city of Jericho.
A year and a half ago, Maan Tannous, 39, and his family, consisting of his mother, wife, and two of his children, moved to live in a house they built on land in the village of Al-Dyouk Al-Tahta, west of the city of Jericho.
The Tannous family lives in its new 120-square-meter cement and “brick” house, after obtaining official Palestinian license papers for the house, as it purchased the land from a Palestinian family who owns “Koshan”, a Jordanian document.
The Tannous family is one of 20 Palestinian families residing in Ein ad-Duyuk at-Tahta, which received demolition notices.
The village of Ein ad-Duyuk at-Tahta is subjected to continuous attacks by the Israeli occupation as part of the policy of forced displacement aimed at emptying the area of its original inhabitants in favor of settlement expansion.
Tannous, who works in the city of Jericho, told the official Wafa news agency that he was surprised by the decision of the occupation, as he lives in a residential area and receives its services directly from the Jericho municipality.
“We were renting an apartment in the village two years ago, then we decided to work on building a house and move to it, and until now I’m still paying the installments,” he added.
Issam Smeirat, Secretary of the Fatah Movement in Ein ad-Duyuk at-Tahta, said that 10 of these homes house 60 people, most of them children, who are vulnerable to displacement if their homes are demolished.
He adds that the Israeli occupation authorities demolished about 15 houses three years ago, as the violations of the occupation are repeated in the village between demolition and seizure, in an attempt to control the area and separate it from its geographical surroundings (the city of Jericho and the villages of Al-Nuweima and Al-Dyouk Al-Fawqa).
He points out that the Israeli occupation authorities constitute an obstacle to the urban expansion of the citizens, especially in the “Sateeh” area of the village, where they handed notices to a number of them to stop construction.
The village is located to the north of the villages of Al-Nuweima and Al-Dawok Al-Fawqa and to the west of the city of Jericho. Its population is estimated at 1,300 citizens, the majority of whom depend on growing vegetables.
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