BETHLEHEM, Tuesday, October 19, 2021 (WAFA) – The Israeli occupation authorities today ordered the demolition of a house under construction in Ghazara locality, east of Bethlehem, according to local sources.

They said that Israeli forces handed Ahmad Mousa Dhuweib an order to tear down his one-storey house in the village purportedly for being built without a license.

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 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.F.