QALQILYA, Israeli occupation authorities today ordered stop on the construction of nine homes to the southeast of the West Bank city of Qalqilya, local sources said.

They said that the Israeli forces stormed ‘Arab ar Ramadin and Arab Abu Farda communities, isolated by the section of Israel’s apartheid and annexation wall, where they handed stop-construction orders against nine homes purportedly for being located in Area C.

Israel demolishes Palestinian houses and structures almost on a daily basis as a means to achieve “demographic control” of the occupied territories.

Israel denies planning permits for Palestinians to build on their own land or to extend existing houses to accommodate natural growth, particularly in Jerusalem and 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 argues that building within existing colonial settlements is necessary to accommodate the “natural growth” of settlers. Therefore, it much more easily gives the estimated 700,000 Jewish Israeli settlers there building permits and provides them with roads, electricity, water and sewage systems that remain inaccessible to many neighboring Palestinians.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency