The left-wing Israeli NGO B’Tselem posted to Twitter pictures and video of bulldozers razing the five structures in Umm al-Kheir in the South Hebron Hills.
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According to the Haaretz report quoting U.S. and European Union officials anonymously, both Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s Office and Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman’s Office have been informed that removing the houses in the village would elicit a “severe” response.
“Israel is relentlessly destroying Palestinians’ homes and livelihoods in order to make way for more illegal settlements”, he said.
Ramy Abdu, chairman of the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, explained that Israeli authorities have “taken harsh measures against these kinds of [EU] projects”.
In the first three months of 2016, Israeli forces demolished 120 EU-funded structures in the West Bank, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). Of those, 120 were documented demolitions of EU-financed projects.
“This is blackmail and pure extortion”, the Palestinian Education Ministry said in a statement.
“They are wasting their time and money, and there is no political will to stop it”.
The global community sees the settlements as a major obstacle to the creation of a Palestinian state and therefore to peace between the two sides. The neighbouring Israeli settlement of Carmel was built in the 1980s on land belonging to the Hathaleens.
“I hope this is just the start of a trend that counters the lack of law enforcement, where the state of Israel turned a blind eye [effectively legalizing] such building”, Damri said.
Palestinian Islamic Jihad believes its ability to run an effective will be compromised by “The security pursuits and arrests by the occupation and Palestinian Authority in the West Bank”, which in their view, “do not permit effective communication with the masses, which is the essence of the electoral process”.
This is while the occupied territories have been the scene of heightened tensions since August 2015, when Israel imposed restrictions on the entry of Palestinian worshipers into the al-Aqsa Mosque compound in East Jerusalem al-Quds in an alleged bid to change the status quo of the Muslim site.
Palestinians said Israel plans to include the land in the illegal settlements of Nofei Nehemia and Rechelim.
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At least 16 children were among the 27 Palestinians who were living in those houses and are now homeless, according to B’Tselem.
