Israeli forces today demolished an agricultural room in Nahalin town, west of Bethlehem, according to a local official.
The acting head of the town council, Ibrahim Ghayatha, said that a sizable Israeli army force escorted a bulldozer into the southern part of the town, knon as Shi‘b Abu Ghazaleh, where they heavy machinery tore down the roof of the structure before workers demolished the walls.
Almost a week ago, the soldiers demolished four tin sheds belonging to the town residents.
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 over 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.
The “Civil Administration” is the name Israel gives to the body administering its military occupation of the West Bank.
Soldiers in the oxymoronically named Civil Administration determine where Palestinians may live, where and when they may travel (including to other parts of the occupied territories like Gaza and East Jerusalem), whether they can build or expand homes on their own land, whether they own that land at all, whether an Israeli settler can takeover that land among others.
Source: Paletine News & Info Agency