Israel issues demolition orders for 7 more Palestinian homes in occupied West Bank

JERUSALEM / ISTANBUL

The Israeli army on Sunday issued demolition orders for seven more Palestinian homes amid military escalation in the occupied West Bank, local media said.

The official Palestinian news agency Wafa said army forces stormed the Umm Rukba area in the town of Al-Khader, south of Bethlehem, and handed demolition notices to residents of seven inhabited homes, citing lack of building permits.

The area is surrounded by Israeli settlements such as Efrat and Elazar and lies within the so-called Gush Etzion settlement bloc.

Palestinian authorities say the demolitions are part of a systematic Israeli policy to displace residents and expand settlements.

In the southern West Bank, the Israeli army expelled Palestinian shepherds from their grazing lands in the Hamra area of the village of Al-Tuwani, located in the Masafer Yatta region, south of Hebron.

According to the Bedouin rights group Al-Baidar, Israeli troops forced several Palestinian shepherds to leave their lands and allowed illegal settlers to graze their livestock in the area under military protection.

The settlers damaged agricultural land planted with fruit trees, causing significant crop losses, witnesses said.

Al-Baidar described the move as “a clear violation of Palestinian land rights” and part of “an ongoing campaign of forced displacement targeting communities in Masafer Yatta.”

The organization called on both the Palestinian Authority and civil society groups to take action to protect residents and help them remain on their land in the face of rising settler violence.

Since the start of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, nearly 1,000 Palestinians have been killed and more than 7,000 injured in the West Bank by Israeli forces and illegal settlers, the Palestinian Health Ministry said.

In a landmark opinion last July, the International Court of Justice declared Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory illegal and called for the evacuation of all settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.