JERUSALEM, January 28, 2012 (WAFA) – United Nation Deputy Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Maxwell Gaylard, called for an immediate end to Israel’s demolition of Palestinian homes in the occupied West Bank, said a press release published Friday on UN News Center website.
It said Gaylard, also the UN Humanitarian Coordinator for the occupied Palestinian Territory, had himself witnessed the suffering and destruction caused by this Israeli practice against Palestinian residents of the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
“Israel, as the occupying power, has a fundamental responsibility to protect the Palestinian civilian population under its control and to ensure their dignity and well-being,” he said. “The wholesale destruction of their homes and livelihoods is not consistent with that responsibility or humanitarian ideals.”
The press release reported that Gaylard had visited Anata, a village on the outskirts of Jerusalem, where he saw the ruins of seven Palestinian homes Israeli forces had demolished at midnight earlier in the week. The demolitions displaced 52 people, including 29 children.
Gaylard’s visit came on the same day that the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) released a report showing that almost 1,100 Palestinians, over half of them children, were displaced due to home demolitions in the West Bank by Israeli forces in 2011, which was over 80% more than in 2010.
OCHA report also indicated that around 4,200 people were affected by the demolition of structures related to their livelihoods, added the press release.
Gaylard noted that these figures represent a “dramatic increase” compared with previous years, and that a “much greater number, in the tens of thousands, remain under threat of dispossession, demolition and displacement.”
“The current policy and practice of demolitions cause extensive human suffering and should end,” said Gaylard, adding “Palestinians urgently require ready access to a fair and non-discriminatory planning and zoning system that meets their needs for growth and development.”
R.Q./M.S.
