QARAWAT BANI HASAN (Dispatches) – Zionist troops on Tuesday demolished the homes of two Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, a statement by the occupying regime’s army said.
The army said it had destroyed the homes in Qarawat Bani Hasan, in the northern West Bank, belonging to Yusef Aasi and Yehya Miri.
Aasi and Miri were arrested a day after the April 29 attack and are being held by the regime.
A day earlier, Palestine’s official Wafa news agency, citing Fouad al-Amour, a local activist, said the regime’s bulldozers escorted by troops raided the village of Birin, south of Al-Khalil, and demolished a 70-square-meter house.
He said the bulldozer also demolished a pond used to collect rainwater for agricultural purposes in the same area. Amour warned the demolitions were intended to displace the local population in order to make way for more settlement construction.
The United Nations’ Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in a report recently that the regime authorities had demolished more than 50 Palestinian-owned structures across the occupied territories in a time span of two weeks.
The regime routinely demolishes Palestinian houses in the West Bank and East Al-Quds, claiming the structures have been built without permits, which are almost impossible to obtain. The regime also sometimes orders Palestinian owners to demolish their own houses or pay the demolition costs instead.
In May 2021, the occupying regime’s land grab in the West Bank sparked a war between the military and the Palestinian resistance groups in the Gaza Strip. The conflict lasted 11 days. The regime’s relentless bombardment of Gaza killed over 250 Palestinians, including 66 children.
More than 600,000 Zionists live in over 230 settlements built since the 1967 occupation of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Al-Quds.
All Zionist settlements are illegal under international law. The United Nations Security Council has condemned the regime’s settlement activities in the occupied territories in several resolutions. Palestinians want the West Bank as part of a future independent state with East Al-Quds as its capital.