HEBRON, Wednesday, September 23, 2020 (WAFA) – Israeli forces today demolished a house under construction and two water wells and removed 15 electric poles from Beit Awwa town, southwest of Hebron city, according to a local municipal source.

Mayor of Beit Awwa Abdulkarim Masalma told WAFA that Israeli forces escorted bulldozers into the town, where the heavy machineries tore down a house under construction belonging for Mufid Abu Za‘nona purportedly for being unlicensed.

Soldiers also destroyed two rainwater collection wells and removed 15 recently-installed electric poles in the area.

Israel demolishes Palestinian houses and structures almost on a daily basis as a means to achieve “demographic control” of the occupied territories.

Israel denies planning permits for Palestinians to build on their own land or to extend existing houses to accommodate natural growth, particularly in Jerusalem and Area C, which constitutes 60 percent of the occupied West Bank and falls under full Israeli military rule, forcing residents to build without obtaining rarely-granted permits to provide shelters for their families.

In contrast, Israel argues that building within existing colonial settlements is necessary to accommodate the “natural growth” of settlers. Therefore, it much more easily gives the estimated 550,000 Jewish Israeli settlers there building permits and provides them with roads, electricity, water and sewage systems that remain inaccessible to many neighboring Palestinians.

K.F.