Palestinians Urges ICC Probe into Zionist Demolition Threats in West Bank

Date: 21 July 2019 - 21:43

News ID: ۶۸۳۵۷

WEST BANK (Dispatches) – The Palestinian Foreign Ministry has called on the International Criminal Court to launch an investigation into the Zionist regime’s threats to demolish houses in Sur Baher town of East al-Quds.
The ICC should launch an official investigation into the "house demolition crimes," the ministry said in a press statement.
The ministry statement condemned the occupying regime’s high court's ruling against the appeal submitted by the Palestinian residents facing demolition and displacement.
Palestinians protested the pending mass demolition plan by the Zionist regime against a village located in East al-Quds in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
The protest was held by around 50 Palestinians at the village of Sur Baher on Saturday.
The Associated Press cited witnesses as saying that Zionist troops arrived and used tear gas canisters and stun grenades to disperse the protesters.
A wall that the regime has been building since 2000 under the pretext of keeping out the Palestinians regularly protesting the regime’s occupation and aggression runs through the village.
The regime alleges that 10 Palestinian-owned buildings have been built too close to the barrier and is set to tear them down.
In June, Israel’s supreme court rejected a petition by the owners to cancel the demolitions. A deadline for the residents to abandon the houses expired on Friday.
"I don’t have any other place to live. I don’t have an alternative,” Reuters cited Ismail Obeideh, a father of six and the owner of one of the houses, as saying.
Israel claims that the owners had failed to obtain "building permits” from the regime.
Obeideh and the other Sur Baher residents, however, say they did not need the Zionist regime’s permission to build their homes because they had received approvals from the Palestinian Authority, which is tasked with running the West Bank’s affairs.
The United Nations, which recognizes al-Quds as occupied territory, has urged the occupying regime to halt the demolitions.

Palestinians run from tear gas canisters fired by Zionist troops during a demonstration against planned demolition of buildings in the Palestinian village of Sur Baher, in East al-Quds, in the occupied West Bank, on July 20, 2019.