In the last two weeks of May, the Israeli occupation forces demolished, confiscated, or forces Palestinians to demolish 43 buildings in Jerusalem and the West Bank, including 11 houses.
This was apparently due to the absence of the Israeli-granted building permits, where Palestinians say these permits are nearly impossible to get, according to a biweekly report released today by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Palestine.
The report indicated that 56 Palestinians, including 33 kids, were displaced, and more than 200 people suffered other effects due to Israeli demolitions.
One of the affected facilities was contributed by donors as humanitarian aid in Umm al Kheir herding community in Hebron, found in an area specified by the Israeli authorities as a “firing zone 917” and marked closed for Israeli military training.
In Area C, 35 out of a total of 43 affected structures had been destroyed, representing 80% of the total. Of the eight which had not been destroyed, five were demolished by their owners to prevent them from facing fines from the Israeli occupation.
These demolitions led to the displacement of seven households, equaling a total of 39 individuals (22 of them children).
The report further pointed out that when Israeli occupation forces conducted an operation in Balata Refugee Camp in Area A of the West Bank, they demolished three homes, irreversibly relocating six families with 34 people in total, 20 of which were children.
Israeli occupation forces ransacked the village of Ni’lin, located near Ramallah in the West Bank, on the 23rd of May. They demolished a home belonging to the family of a Palestinian resistance fighter, a multi-story structure, displacing 14 people which included eight children, and impacting two other households.
Since the start of 2023, 11 homes and one agricultural building have been torn down by the Israeli occupation, compared with 14 buildings in 2022 and three in 2021.
The United Nations agency has commented that demolitions as punishment are a form of collective punishment and, as such, violate international law.
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