JERUSALEM, Wednesday, January 27, 2021 (WAFA) – Israeli forces today demolished a residential structure and a shack in As-Sawahira Ash-Sharqiya town, southeast of the occupied city of Jerusalem, according to local sources.

Head of As-Sawahira Land Defense Committee, Younes Jaafar, told WAFA that Israeli forces  stormed Umm al-Rayyan area, near al-Tahadi School, where they tore down a residential structure and a livestock shack belonging to Isma‘il Saray‘a, before seizing the equipment.

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 over 700,000 Jewish Israeli settlers there building permits and provides them with roads, electricity, water and sewage systems that remain inaccessible to many neighboring Palestinians.

K.T./ K.F.