RAMALLAH, Palestine / ANKARA
The Israeli army rounded up at least 45 Palestinians and demolished a home in the occupied West Bank on Thursday, prisoners’ affairs groups said.
Minors and former prisoners were among the detainees in the raids that targeted Hebron, Salfit, and other areas in the West Bank, the Commission of Detainees’ Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoner Society said in a joint statement.
During the Israeli raids, Israeli forces stormed several homes, vandalized their properties, and held people for field interrogation, the statement said.
Thursday's arrests brought the number of Palestinians detained by the Israeli army in the West Bank since October 2023 to nearly 17,000, including those who were released after being arrested, according to Palestinian figures.
The figure does not include those arrested from the Gaza Strip, whose numbers are estimated to be in the thousands.
Meanwhile, the Israeli army demolished a Palestinian home in the northern West Bank city of Nablus, citing the lack of a building permit, witnesses said.
According to witnesses, bulldozers escorted by Israeli forces raided the Nablus Al-Jadida neighborhood and razed the two-story home.
Israel widely uses the pretext of a lack of construction permits to demolish Palestinian homes, especially in Area C in the occupied West Bank, which is under Israel’s administrative and security control and constitutes around 60% of the West Bank.
Under the 1995 Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, was divided into three portions – Area A, B, and C.
At least 961 Palestinians have been killed and over 7,000 others injured in attacks by the Israeli army and illegal settlers in the West Bank since the start of the Gaza war in October 2023, according to Palestinian figures.
In July 2024, the International Court of Justice declared Israel's decades-long occupation of Palestinian land illegal and demanded the evacuation of all existing settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.