Days Of Palestine – West Bank

Israeli forces Wednesday demolished a shack and seized another in the village of Deir Qaddis, to the north of the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah, according to sources.

Saeed Abu Zaid, head of the Deir Qaddis village council, said that Israeli forces raided the area and proceeded to demolish a shack used as an accommodation for workers, and seized another.

He noted that both shacks belong to Anwar Nasser, a villager.

Located almost 16 kilometers to the northwest of Ramallah city, Deir Qaddis has a population of some 2,600 and occupies a total area of 8,053 dunams.

Under the Oslo Accords, an agreement made 25 years ago that was supposed to last just five years towards a self-governing country alongside Israel, the Palestinian Authority was given ed control over a small pocket of land occupying 621 dunams, accounting for almost 8 percent of the village’s total area.  In contrast, Israel maintains control over the remainder, classified as Area C.

Israel has seized at least 2,735 dunams (34 percent) belonging to the village for the construction of three nearby colonial settlements, namely Mod'in Illit, Nili and Na'aleh, which strangle the village from the south and the north.

Israel has also constructed a section of the apartheid wall on the village’s land, confiscating and isolating 4,272 dunams (accounting for 53 percent) for colonial settlement activities.

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 550,000 Jewish Israeli settlers there building permits and provides them with roads, electricity, water and sewage systems that remain inaccessible to many neighboring Palestinians.