HEBRON, Friday, November 18, 2022 (WAFA) – The Israeli army today expelled a Palestinian family from their house in Hebron city in the southern occupied West Bank.

The soldiers tore down the door of the house of Bader al-Batsh in the Old City of Hebron and forced him along with his entire family in the cold while searching and ransacking the property.

The al-Batsh family had been living in the house, which belongs to Hebron Municipality and was recently transformed into a hotel, until their expulsion.

Meanwhile, Hebron Municipality affirmed that it owns ownership rights of the property and pledged that it would take the legal measures necessary to reclaim the house.

It called upon human rights organizations, notably United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), to put genuine pressure on the Israeli occupation authorities to halt all schemes intended to de-Palestinize the city.

It also urged them to intervene to defend the Palestinian people’s rights to their public and private property in their territories that have been under the Israeli occupation since June 1967.

The city of Hebron, which houses the Ibrahimi Mosque, is home to roughly 160,000 Palestinians and about 800 notoriously aggressive Israeli settlers who live in compounds heavily guarded by Israeli troops.

Israel has expelled the only international monitors protecting Hebron’s Palestinians from 800 heavily guarded settlers, one of whom committed the 1994 massacre that triggered their deployment.

K.F.