BETHLEHEM, Thursday, September 24, 2020 (WAFA) – Bulldozers of the Israeli occupation authorities today tore down residential tents and livestock sheds in Kisan village, east of the southern West Bank city of Bethlehem, according to a local municipal source.

Head of Kisan village council, Ahmad Ghazal, said that Israeli occupation forces cordoned off an area of the village before starting to tear down three residential tents and five livestock barns purportedly for being set up without permission.

Ghazal pointed out that there has been a recent upsurge in Israeli colonial settlement encroachments upon the village, notably the seizure of large tracts of land to make room for settlement construction, the halt on the construction of a local school besides to the ongoing demolition of structures.

Located 11 kilometers to the south of Bethlehem city, Kisan has a population of some 600 and occupies a total area of 133,330 dunums before most of the land was expropriated by Israel since the occupation of the West Bank in 1967.

Israel has established three colonial settlements, namely Ma‘ale Amos and Mizpe Shalem besides the settlement outpost of Ibei Hanahal on lands confiscated from the village. It has confiscated further land for the construction of settler-only by-pass roads.

Israel has also constructed a section of the apartheid wall, confiscating and isolating some 87,344 dunums of fertile land, accounting for 65.5 percent of the village total area, for colonial settlement activities and pushing the villagers into a crowded enclave, a ghetto, surrounded by walls, settlements, and military installations.

K.F./M.K.