BETHLEHEM, Thursday, May 4, 2023 (WAFA) – Israeli occupation forces demolished a restaurant today in the village of Al-Walaja, to the northwest of Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank, according to local sources.

Khader Al-Araj, the village’s mayor, told WAFA that an Israeli occupation army force accompanied by a bulldozer stormed Ein Juweza neighborhood in the village and demolished a Palestinian-owned restaurant, under the pretext of construction without an Israeli permit.

The restaurant is owned by Rashid Barghouth, a local Palestinian resident.

The area where the demolition took place is classified as Area C, the more than two-thirds of the occupied West Bank under full Israeli military and civil control, and where the occupation authorities almost never issue construction permits to Palestinian citizens, leaving many Palestinians with no choice but to build without a permit.

During the first quarter of 2023, the Israeli occupation authorities demolished or seized 290 Palestinian-owned structures across the West Bank, including Jerusalem, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in the occupied Palestinian territory.

M.N