UN report says a total of 41 structures including a school were destroyed south of Nablus displacing 36 Palestinians.

Since the beginning of 2016, Israel has demolished, on average, 29 Palestinian-owned buildings a week, according to the UN [EPA]

Israeli forces have demolished dozens of structures, including a school, in the northern West Bank this week, leaving 10 families homeless, according to a new United Nations report.

In as statement issued on Friday, the UN Coordinator for Humanitarian Assistance and Development Aid said the demolitions took place on Wednesday in the village of Khirbet Tana, south of Nablus in the northern West Bank.

In total, 41 buildings were destroyed, displacing 36 Palestinians, including 11 children, the UN said.

“These are some of the highest levels of demolition and displacement recorded in a similar timeframe since 2009,” the statement said.

Khirbet Tana is home to approximately 250 people who rely on herding and agriculture for their livelihood, according to the report.

Because the residents need grazing land for their livestock, most have “little choice” but to stay in the area.

“Due to the community’s location within an area declared as a ‘firing zone’ for training purposes, residents are denied building permits and have experienced repeated waves of demolitions, the last one taking place on February 9,” the report said.

Nickolay Mladenov, UN special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, said that last month the number of such demolitions had tripled on average since the start of the year.

“Since the beginning of 2016, Israel has demolished, on average, 29 Palestinian-owned structures per week, three times the weekly average for 2015,” he said.

‘Firing zones’

Last week, the European Union hit out at Israeli authorities after they demolished a school funded by the French government.

COGAT, the defence ministry body responsible for coordinating Israeli government activity in the Palestinian territories, put the number of buildings at 20.

In the West Bank, an estimated 18 percent of the area has been declared by the Israeli authorities as “firing zones”, and 38 Palestinian communities are located within these areas.

Because the Israeli Civil Administration prohibits building in these areas, wide-scale demolitions frequently take place.

The Israeli military is also frequently accused of carrying out punitive demolitions against the family homes of individuals suspected of attacks against Israelis.

While the Israeli military stopped punitive demolition orders in 2005, following reports by an Israeli military committee that the practice did not deter attacks, the practice was resumed in July 2014.

Throughout occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, some 90,000 Palestinians are facing potential displacement, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Two Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in occupied West Bank, one in East Jerusalem, after alleged stabbings.

Video footage showed the moment after an Israeli settler shot dead a Palestinian man in Hebron [YouTube]

Three Palestinians have been shot dead in separate attacks after they allegedly tried to stab Israelis in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, the latest incidents in a wave of violence that has escalated this month.

In Hebron, a Jewish settler killed a Palestinian man early on Saturday after the Palestinian allegedly tried to stab him. Israeli police said the man was shot dead before he could harm the Israeli.

Witnesses disputed the Israeli police version of the event, saying the incident looked more like an attack by the settler on the Palestinian.

Video circulated by Palestinian activists showed a young man wearing a kippa brandishing a pistol as shots rang out before Israeli soldiers moved in to pull him away from a body lying on the ground.

Palestinian security sources identified the Palestinian as 18-year-old Fadel al-Kawatsmi.

In the second attack, a Palestinian woman was shot dead by Israeli forces after she allegedly attempted to stab a female soldier guarding an illegal Jewish settlement in Hebron.

The soldier suffered minor injuries to her hand, according to an Israeli police spokesperson.

Palestinian media said her assailant was aged 16.

Israeli police sealed off the city by blocking road access after violent clashes broke out between Palestinian protesters and Israeli forces following the killings.

In East Jerusalem, a Palestinian allegedly tried to stab a soldier at a checkpoint in East Talpiot but was shot dead by other soldiers.

Police said the boy was a 16-year-old from nearby Jabel Mukaber, the same neighbourhood that was home to three Palestinians who were killed earlier this week after alleged attacks against Israelis.

Amid tit-for-tat attacks between Israelis and Palestinians, the ongoing streak of violence has left dead at least 42 Palestinians – including suspected attackers, as well as unarmed protesters and bystanders – and seven Israelis.

Israeli security forces have deployed massively in Jerusalem and on Wednesday began setting up checkpoints in parts of East Jerusalem, including Jabel Mukaber. But it has failed to stop the violence.

The mounting death toll has prompted speculation about a new Palestinian intifada, or uprising, like those of 1987-93 and 2000-2005, when thousands were killed in near-daily violence.

Palestinian plea rejected

Saturday’s killings came a day after Israel rejected a Palestinian plea to the United Nations for an international force to police the al-Aqsa Mosque compound in occupied East Jerusalem.

Tensions boiled over into violence earlier this month as Israeli incursions into the al-Aqsa complex – the third holiest site in Islam – gave way to protests and clashes that have consumed much of the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip.

“An international presence on the Temple Mount [al-Aqsa Mosque compound] would violate the status quo of the last several decades,” Israeli ambassador to the UN Danny Danon said on Friday.

“Israel does not think international intervention [in] the Temple Mount would be helpful or contribute to stability,” Danon added.

Palestinians ride a truck loaded with their belongings after their shanty was demolished by the Israeli army east of the West Bank city of Ramallah © Mohamad Torokman / Reuters

by RT

Palestinians have little chance of obtaining a construction permit in the West Bank, while Israel keeps issuing new demolition orders for Palestinian buildings faster than it can bulldoze them, says a new report from the local United Nations mission.

“Official  data  released  by  the  Israeli  authorities indicate  that  over  11,000  demolition  orders – affecting  an  estimated  13,000  Palestinian-owned structures, including homes – are currently ‘outstanding’ in Area C of the West Bank,” begins areport, titled “Under Threat,” published by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs occupied Palestinian territory (OCHA-oPt).

While Israel has destroyed over 2,800 buildings since it began issuing demolition orders in 1988, most of them have never been carried out, remaining a Sword of Damocles hanging over the heads Palestinian residents.

#Israel approves building of 300 new ‘illegitimate’ West Bank homes amid demolition protests http://t.co/1e87G0hwll pic.twitter.com/PJmlDAwppQ

— RT (@RT_com) July 30, 2015

“Structures built without permits are regularly served with demolition orders. While only a minority of the orders issued are executed, these orders do not expire and leave affected households in a state of chronic uncertainty and threat,” say the authors.“Where the orders have been implemented, they have resulted in displacement and disruption of livelihoods, the entrenchment of poverty and increased aid dependency.” A shockingly low percentage of Palestinian applications for permits is ever approved. Israeli Civil Administration data reveals that Palestinians submitted 2,020 requests for building permits in Area C between 2010 and 2014 and only 33 of them (1.5 percent) were approved. “The planning and zoning regime applied by the Israeli authorities, including the ways in which public land is allocated, makes it virtually impossible for Palestinians to obtain building permits in most of Area C,” the report adds.

When will US & UK govs stop turning a blind eye? Israel plans to demolish 17,000 Arab buildings in West Bank, UN says http://t.co/DKBsrSm0oX — John Wood (@John101Wood) September 7, 2015

In reality, less than 1 percent of Area C has been allocated for Palestinian buildings, and even structures like a tent or a fence need an official permit.

Out of a total 11,134 demolition orders, 570 were labeled as ready to be carried out. In the first half of 2015 alone, the Civil Administration destroyed 245 Palestinian structures in Area C. Meanwhile, 2,454 orders were put on hold in light of legal issues, and another 8,110 were said to be “in process.”

Area C represents about 60 percent of the West Bank, which was temporarily divided into three parts – A, B and C – in accordance with the 1995 Interim Agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, more commonly known as the Oslo accords.

Under the signed agreement, Area C was to be transferred to the Palestinian Authority by the end of 1998. This never happened, however, and Israel has assumed military control of the territory. Currently, 300,000 Palestinians reside inside the area.

Israeli forces arrest a Palestinian teenager during on January 1, 2015 at Hawara checkpoint, east of the West Bank city of Nablus, Palestine. AFP/Jaafar Ashtiyeh

by Al-Akhbar

Zionist settlers uprooted on Thursday more than 5,000 olive tree saplings in agricultural lands east of the town of Turmusayya in the Ramallah district, locals said, a day after settlers ran over a Palestinian boy and burnt down a Palestinian home in the occupied West Bank.

Awad Abu Samra, one of the land owners targeted, told Ma’an news agency that in the past week settlers raided the area and attacked olive trees on an almost daily basis.

The settlers uprooted the trees in a way that makes it impossible for Palestinian farmers to plant the trees again in the future, locals said, accusing the Zionists of pressuring Palestinians out of their lands.

Samra estimated that the settlers were able to uproot around 5,000 olive tree saplings, out of the 8,000 trees planted in honor of slain 55-year-old Palestinian Authority minister Ziad Abu Ein.

Abu Ein died on December 10 after Israeli Occupation Forces beat him on the chest with the butts of their rifles and their helmets in Turmsayya during a peaceful march marking Human Rights Day.

Abu Samra said that the settlers who carried out the attacks most likely came from the nearby illegal settlement of Adei Ad, an outpost of the Zionist-only settlement of Shilo, which was illegaly built on lands confiscated from local Palestinians.

Jamil al-Barghouthi, president of the Resistance Committee against the Wall and the Settlements, told Ma’an that the “barbaric act” occurred under the cover and protection of the Israeli Occupation Forces.

Barghouthi, who lives in the area, said settlers frequently attack Palestinian farmers in a bid to force them out of their own land and seize it for illegal settlement building projects.

He stressed that the committee will replant thousands of olive trees and will provide full assistance to farmers to help them cultivate the land anew.

Israeli settlers and military forces regularly sabotage, burn and uproot hundreds of thousands of olive trees, which are highly symbolic for the Palestinian community.

Attacks on olive trees are a way to force Palestinians out of their homes and lands for illegal settlement construction projects, as the loss of a year’s crop can signal destitution for many.

The olive industry supports the livelihoods of roughly 80,000 families in the occupied West Bank.

In order to build its apartheid wall and infrastructure for Zionist-only settle­ments, Israeli bulldozers plowed down more than 800,000 olive trees in the West Bank, the equivalent of bulldozing all of New York City’s Central Park 33 times.

Settler violence against Palestinians and their property is systematic and often abetted by Israeli authorities, who rarely intervene in the violent attacks or prosecute the perpetrators.

In the last two weeks of 2014, there had been 320 incidents of settler violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Three separate settler violence incidents were reported on December 31.

Israeli hate crimes against Palestinians

A 10-year-old Palestinian boy was injured after an Israeli settler ran him over in the Palestinian village of Tuqu south east of Bethlehem.

Bethlehem region emergency services official Mohammed Awad told Ma’an that Amir Majed Ahmed Suleiman, 10, was injured on his way to school after a Zionist settler ran him over with his car.

Israeli forces were deployed on the main road of the village but the settler immediately fled the area, Awad said.

He added that Suleiman was taken to the Beit Jala Governmental Hospital in Bethlehem for treatment.

The incident came only three days after an Israeli settler ran over a seven-year-old Palestinian boy from the village of Zif south of al-Khalil.

Recent months have seen a wave of hit-and-runs against Palestinians by Zionist settlers living in the occupied West Bank and annexed East Jerusalem.

In October, a settler ran over two Palestinian children as they walked near near Ramallah, killing a 5-year-old Palestinian girl.

Meanwhile in a separate incident, a group of Israeli settlers set a Palestinian home on fire in the village of al-Deirat south of West Bank.

The mayor of Yatta, a nearby village, told Ma’an that the incident was “very dangerous and aimed to kill an entire family of seven, including five children.”

The mayor Moussa Makhamreh said that a group of settlers from the nearby Zionist-only settlement of Karmel broke the windows of Mahmoud Mohammed Jaber al-Adra’s house at around 3:00 am, throwing Molotov cocktails through the windows and spraying racist slogans on the walls.

The slogans read, ironically, “Death to Arabs” and “‘Respectfully Leave.”

The Jewish-only settlement of Karmel is notorious for its settlers’ violent and racist attacks and threats against local Palestinians.

The settlement lies almost entirely in Area C, the 62 percent of the West Bank under full Israeli civil and military occupation since 1993.

Around 3,000 Israeli settlers live in illegal Zionist settlements in the Yatta region, according to the Applied Research Institute Jerusalem.

The safety of these settlers is often given as an excuse for the forced displacement of Palestinians who live in nearby villages.

The roots of the Israel-Palestine conflict date back to 1917, when the British government, in the now-famous “Balfour Declaration,” called for “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.”

Israel occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank during the 1967 Middle East War. It later annexed the holy city in 1980, claiming it as the capital of the self-proclaimed Zionist state – a move never recognized by the international community.

(Ma’an, Al-Akhbar)