ACRE, West Bank (Dispatches) –
Zionist regime authorities demolished several Palestinian houses this morning in the city of Acre, a city that acquired large Zionist populations through the forced expulsion of its Palestinian population in 1948.
According to Arab48, the houses, which were built before the occupation of Palestinian territories, were home to 20 Palestinian residents.
The regime claims the homes were built without planning permissions.
In recent years, the occupation has demolished hundreds of homes on the grounds that they lack construction and renovation permits, which are almost impossible to obtain for Palestinians.
Palestinians and human rights organizations say the policy is part of a larger Zionist strategy to gradually expel Palestinians from their historic homes.
The Zionist troops closed the northern entrance to the city of Acre after military bulldozers and machinery entered the area and prevented journalists from approaching and photographing the demolition site.
After the arrest of three family members, Noura Abu Eish said: “Police closed the city of Acre from all its entrances to demolish our homes as if we were criminals. The police do not fight drugs and crime, but rather raid our homes and prevent us from taking any data-x-items from our homes. But I will take a picture of my late father.”
A panel of United Nations experts has called on the international community to take action to stop systematic housing demolition, arbitrary displacement and forced evictions of Palestinian people in the occupied West Bank.
Palestine’s official Wafa news agency cited the experts as making the plea in a statement on Monday, after media reports said the occupying regime demolished 132 Palestinian structures across 38 communities in the occupied West Bank in January 2023, a 135-percent increase compared to the same period in 2022.
“The systematic demolition of Palestinian homes, erection of illegal Israeli settlements and systematic denial of building permits for Palestinians in the occupied West Bank amounts to ‘domicide’,” the statement said.
The experts reiterated their concern over the situation in Masafer Yatta area, where over 1,100 Palestinian residents remain at imminent risk of forced eviction, arbitrary displacement and demolitions of their homes, livelihood, water and sanitation structures.
“Direct attacks on the Palestinian people’s homes, schools, livelihoods and water sources are nothing but Israel’s attempts to curtail the Palestinians’ right to self-determination and to threaten their very existence,” the experts said.
“Israel’s tactics of forcibly displacing and evicting the Palestinian population appear to have no limits. In occupied East Al-Quds, tens of Palestinian families also face imminent risks of forced evictions and displacement, due to discriminatory zoning and planning regimes that favor Israeli settlement expansion – the act that is illegal under international law and amounts to a war crime,” they said.
The Zionist regime occupied the West Bank, including East Al-Quds, in a Western-backed war in 1967. Ever since, it has been dotting the territory with hundreds of settlements that house thousands of settlers. All the settlements are illegal under international law. The UN Security Council has condemned the occupying regime’s settlement activities in the occupied territories in several resolutions.