RAMALLAH, Wednesday, June 24, 2020 (WAFA) – Israeli forces demolished Wednesday morning a Palestinian house in Beitunia town, west of Ramallah city, said local sources.

Sources confirmed that a large Israeli force raided the town and cordoned off the area surrounding the house as two bulldozers demolished the structure, reducing it to rubble.

The house, which belong to Abdul-Aziz Froukh, was located near the section of Israel’s apartheid wall. It was demolished purportedly for lacking a construction permit.  

Located three kilometers to the west of Ramallah, Beitunia has a population of some 28,000 and occupies a total area of 21,127 dunams.

Under the Oslo Accords, an agreement made 25 years ago that was supposed to last just five years towards a self-governing country alongside Israel, 3,759 dunams of the town’s land, accounting for 17.8 percent of the village’s total area, were classified as Area A, and 472 dunums, accounting for just 2 percent, were classified as Area B. In contrast, Israel maintains control over the remainder, classified as Area C.

Since the start of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank in 1967, like so many other villages in Palestine, Beitunia has been subjected to almost continual land theft for Israeli settlements, bypass roads, and military installations.

Israel has constructed Beit Horon and Givat Zeev colonial settlements on an area of some 4,000 dunums of Palestinian land, including a portion confiscated from Beitunia. It has also seized some 520 dunams for the establishment of Ofer military base and detention center, south of the town, and further lands for the construction of settler-only bypass roads 443 and 436.  

It has also constructed a section of the apartheid wall, which extends for 12.7 kilometers on the town’s land, isolating some 12,773 dunums of the town’s land for colonial settlement activities and pushing the villagers into a crowded enclave, a ghetto, surrounded by walls, settlements and military installations.

K.F.