NABLUS, Thursday, January 05, 2023 (WAFA) – Israeli bulldozers today leveled Palestinian dwellings and cattle barns in Duma town, south of the occupied West Bank city of Nablus, according to a local activist.

Ghassan Daghlas, who monitors colonial settlement activities in the northern West Bank, said that an army force, accompanied by a bulldozer, stormed the eastern part of the town, and razed eight dwellings and cattle barns, all belonging to Mahmoud Mleihat, displacing some 25 people, including children.

Israel denies planning permits for Palestinians to build on their own land or to extend existing houses to accommodate natural growth, particularly in occupied East Jerusalem and Area C, which constitutes 60 percent of the area of the occupied West Bank and falls under full Israeli military rule, forcing residents to build without obtaining permits to provide shelters for their families.

The “Civil Administration” is the name Israel gives to the body administering its military occupation of the West Bank.

Soldiers in the oxymoronically named Civil Administration determine where Palestinians may live, where and when they may travel (including to other parts of the occupied territories like Gaza and East Jerusalem), whether they can build or expand homes on their own land, whether they own that land at all, whether an Israeli settler can takeover that land among others.

K.F.