NABLUS, Tuesday, August 17, 2021 (WAFA) – The Israeli occupation authorities today demolished a house under construction in the village of Yatma, south of the occupied West Bank city of Nablus, according to local sources.

Ghassan Daghlas, who monitors Israeli colonial settlement activities in the northern West Bank, told WAFA that the Israeli forces escorted a bulldozer to the village, where the heavy machinery tore down the house which belonged to Bara’ al-Najjar.

The house, which was constructed 15 years ago and re-built by its owner, is located to the northeast of the village and opposite to Jabal Sbeih (Sabih Mount), which has become a scene of weekly protests against decades of Israeli settler-colonialism and apartheid.

Daghlas pointed that the demolition of the house was part of a wider demolition campaign against Palestinian houses 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.T./ K.F.