NABLUS, April 4, 2016 (WAFA) – Israeli authorities Monday demolished five Palestinian-owned homes in the West Bank district of Nablus and Hebron, as well as in East Jerusalem, according to local sources.

In Nablus district, Israeli troops broke into the village of Kherbet al-Marajem, where they demolished three homes belonging to two local Palestinians, Jamal Tawil and Hesham Jadrawi, under the pretext of construction without a permit.

The Israeli demolitions in the village provoked clashes with local Palestinian youths, during which the Israeli army used teargas canisters against the youths, causing many cases of suffocation among them.

Meanwhile, Israeli authorities demolished a house in the town of Surif, northwest of Hebron, also for lack of a construction permit.

Security sources told WAFA that Israeli forces accompanied by bulldozers broke into the town, before they demolished the house of Majdi Ghnemat, a local Palestinian, displacing him and his family.

In Jerusalem, the Israeli municipality demolished the house of Ahmed Abu Rmeleh, a Palestinian local, in Jabal al-Mukabir neighborhood, also under the pretext of construction without a permit.

Over the course of 2015, Israel demolished 521 structures in Area C as well as in East Jerusalem, displacing 636 people, according to the UN monitoring group OCHA. The vast majority of these demolitions were carried out on the grounds of construction without a permit.

Between 2010 and 2014, only 1.5 percent of applications for building permits in Area C were approved by Israeli occupation authorities, OCHA adds.

M.N