JERUSALEM, Friday, March 01, 2019 (WAFA) - The Israeli authorities destroyed in the last two weeks of February parts of three water connections in the occupied West Bank, two of them were funded by international donors and provided as humanitarian assistance, that supplied or intended to supply tens of thousands of Palestinians with drinking water, according the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in the occupied Palestinian territory.

It said in its biweekly Protection of Civilians report covering the period between 12 to 25 February that the three connections were all in Area C of the occupied West Bank, which is under full Israeli military control.

The connections either supplied, or were about to supply, running water to 18,000 people in the Beit Dajan and Beit Furik villages in Nablus in the north of the West Bank, 13 herding communities of 1200 people in the Masafer Yatta area of Hebron in the south of the West Bank, and 320 people of the Bedouin community of Wadi Abu Hindi in Jerusalem area, all of which suffer from severe water shortages, especially in the summer, said OCHA.

Israel also demolished 26 Palestinian-owned structures during the reporting period, displacing 44 people and affecting thousands of others, it said.

Seven structures, including five homes, were in occupied East Jerusalem displacing 38 people. Two of the targeted homes were in the community of Bir Onah in the south of the city, which is separated from the rest of Jerusalem by Israel‘s barrier.

All the demolitions were on grounds of the lack of Israeli-issued building permits, which is impossible to get, particularly in Area C.

M.K.