SALFIT, March 24, 2011 (WAFA) – The Israeli authorities Thursday destroyed an agricultural road in the village of Qarawat Bani Hassan, in the north of the West Bank, for the second time.

Prime Minister Salam Fayyad strongly condemned the Israeli act saying that “they destroy and we build because we want to be free and to live.”

The road was named Freedom Road and it was completed in September.

Israel destroyed the road the first time two months later claiming the road was in area C, which is under full Israeli control. The Palestinians rebuilt the road two weeks later until Israel had returned Thursday to destroy it for the second time.

Fayyad said that he does not accept the classification of the West Bank land into areas A, B and C. “We do not recognize this classification. This land is Palestinian and it is part of the territory occupied in 1967.”

Fayyad, who had promised Qarawat Bani Hassan residents to build this road for them on Land Day, March 30, of last year, said he was “seriously disturbed” when he heard that the Israeli army has destroyed Freedom Road.

“We condemn this with the strongest terms possible,” he said.

Abdul Karim Rayyan, head of Qarawat village council, told WAFA that Israeli bulldozers destroyed the road in order to use the land to expand two settlements near the village and to take over the water spring the road leads to.

The road is 2 kilometers long and cost about $400,000 to construct. It is important because it links the village to its agricultural land and the spring, which the residents use for drinking water and to irrigate their land.

R.S./F.J./M.A.