Israeli occupation authorities ordered today a halt on the construction of a Palestinian-owned house in the village of Irtas, in the occupied West Bank province of Bethlehem, according to local sources.
Lutfi Asaad, the mayor of the village, told WAFA that the Israeli army handed a notification to Ahmad Abu Sawi, a local Palestinian resident, asking them to stop the construction of his home in the village, under the pretext of lacking an Israeli construction permit.
Israeli occupation authorities refuse to permit any Palestinian construction in Area C, which constitutes 60 percent of the occupied West Bank and falls under full Israeli military rule, forcing residents to build without obtaining rarely-granted permits to provide shelters for their families.
In contrast, Israel much more easily gives over 650,000 Jewish Israeli settlers there building permits and provides them with roads, electricity, water and sewage systems that remain inaccessible to many neighboring Palestinians.
Source: Palestine News & Information Agency