NABLUS, January 29, 2025 (WAFA) – Israeli forces Wednesday evening issued a demolition notice against a residential building in the vicinity of the occupied West Bank city of Nablus, according to local sources.
They said that the occupation forces handed over a notice to the Khammash family, informing them of the scheduled demolition of their five-floor building atop Mount Gerizim.
Israel has long demolished Palestinian houses and structures as a means to achieve “demographic control” of the occupied territories.
It has long denied 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.
Since the onset of the Israeli genocidal aggression on Gaza in October 2023, however, the practice has been turbocharged, with Israeli bulldozers tearing down people's homes on a near-daily basis.
Overseen by Bezalel Smotrich, Israel's far-right finance minister, who also wields power over authorities in the West Bank - and is a settler himself, demolitions saw a surge in 2023 and 2024, including in Area A, which is under Palestinian Authority jurisdiction, and Area B, which is under joint security control between the PA and Israel - soaring from 29 structures to 265.
To maintain a veneer of legality, Israeli courts issue standing demolition orders to Palestinian homes, often on the pretext of a lack of building permits. The orders can hang over families for years before they’re executed.
In contrast, Israel argues that building within existing colonies is necessary to accommodate the “natural growth” of colonies. Therefore, it much more easily gives over 700,000 Jewish Israeli colonists there building permits and provides them with roads, electricity, water, and sewage systems that remain inaccessible to many neighboring Palestinians.
K.F.
