Israel demolishes eight more Palestinian homes in West Bank
Israeli forces have demolished eight more Palestinian houses in the occupied West Bank.
Israeli human rights group B’Tselem reported that Israeli bulldozers entered the village of Khan al-Ahmar on Sunday, carrying out the demolitions and leaving 28 Palestinians, including 18 minors, homeless as a result.
An unnamed spokesperson for an Israeli agency responsible for coordinating Israeli policies with the Palestinian Authority, asserted that the structures had been built near the Ma’ale Adumim settlement “without proper permits.” This is while the Israeli regime has occupied the lands.
Israeli officials are planning to shut down and demolish a primary school in the same Palestinian village.
Italian aid organization Vento Di Terra, together with volunteers from the Jahalin Bedouin community in al-Khan al-Ahmar, built the school in 2009 as an alternative for the Palestinian students who had to attend classes in distant schools.
The school, which accommodates 170 students from five Bedouin communities in the region, was built using mud and tires because Israel prohibits Palestinians from using stone and concrete in construction.
On October 7, Israeli military forces entered the Bedouin village of Araqeeb in the Negev region of southern Israel, and leveled a number of structures built in the area.
The first demolition of al-Araqeeb took place on June 27, 2010, and the village has been demolished more than 100 times ever since.
Rights groups argue that the demolition of al-Araqeeb and other Bedouin villages is an attempt by the Israeli regime to uproot indigenous Palestinians from the Negev region and confiscate more land for the expansion of illegal settlements.
More than half a million Israelis live in over 230 illegal settlements built since the 1967 Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and East Jerusalem al-Quds.
The presence and continued expansion of Israeli settlements in occupied Palestine has created a major obstacle for the efforts to establish peace in the Middle East.
The Palestinian Authority wants the West Bank as part of a future independent Palestinians state, with East Jerusalem al-Quds as its capital.
