NABLUS, (PIC)
Israeli occupation forces (IOF) launched on Tuesday a large-scale demolition campaign in al-Tawil village in the town of Aqraba, south of Nablus, in the northern West Bank.
As a result, 50 families in the town of Kafr Qalil and the upper suburb are facing the threat of forced displacement.
Citizens reported that the IOF accompanied by five bulldozers stormed the village and began demolishing homes, agricultural rooms, tin sheds, and an electricity network supplying the area, without prior notice.
Local sources explained that the al-Tawil village is systematically exposed to Israeli attacks at the hands of settlers and the IOF, noting that a number of citizens have been martyred in defense of their lands.
The latest victims of settlers’ attacks were the two young men, Abdul Rahman Bani Fadel, 30, and Muhammad Bani Jami, 21, who succumbed to their injuries sustained in a settlers’ attack in al-Tawil village on April 15.
In the same context, Hamdi Abu al-Hayat, a member of the Committee for the Defense of Threatened Homes in the Al-Dahiya and Kafr Qalil neighborhoods, said that the IOF on Monday handed over demolition notices to the owners of 10 homes, affecting 50 families.
SANAD Agency quoted Abu al-Hayat as saying that the demolition notices came under the pretext that the affected homes are located within areas classified as (Area C) according to the Oslo Accords, which is about 60% of the West Bank’s area in which unlicensed construction is prohibited.
The demolition notices came just few days after the extremist Israeli Finance Minister, Bezalel Smotrich, announced the confiscation of about 24,000 dunums of the West Bank for settlement expansion.
