During the past two weeks alone, Israeli occupation authorities demolished, or forced Palestinians to demolish, 19 structures in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, displacing 22 people and affecting 130 others, a UN report has revealed.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in its biweekly Protection of Civilians Report that so far in 2020, 35 structures have been demolished or seized in the West Bank, of which ten were donor-funded.

In a separate incident, clashes erupted during the demolition of a residential structure in Rifa’iyya village, near Hebron. The remaining nine structures demolished were in East Jerusalem.

In three other separate incidents in the Jabal al Mukabbir neighborhood of East Jerusalem, three Palestinian families were forced to demolish their homes, displacing three households, comprising 12 people. Another five of the targeted structures were in the communities of Bir Onah and Al-Walaja village, both lying within the Israeli-declared Jerusalem municipal border, but separated from the rest of East Jerusalem by the Segregation Barrier. Additionally, a residential structure was demolished in Beit Hanina, displacing one family of four, including two children. 

On 19 January, an extended Palestinian refugee family, comprising three households, was at heightened risk of forced eviction from its three-apartment home in Silwan neighborhood in East Jerusalem, following an Israeli court ruling in favor of a settler organization claiming ownership over the land. Over 80 Palestinian families in this area have pending eviction cases filed against them by the same settler organization.

During the same period, eight settler attacks resulted in nine Palestinian injuries and property damage and one international injury. In Madama village, near Nablus, a group of around 30 Israeli settlers, reportedly from Yitzhar settlement, attacked and threw stones at a house, injuring a pregnant Palestinian woman and causing damage to the house.

In another incident, on Road 60 near Hebron, a Palestinian man and a family of seven, including five children and one woman, were injured when Israeli settlers threw stones at their vehicles.

Also, in a separate incident, settlers physically assaulted and injured an international volunteer accompanying Palestinian herders in At-Tuwani village near Hebron.

In the Gaza Strip, Palestinian farmers reported that on January 14 and 15, Israeli airplanes sprayed herbicides on Palestinian agricultural land near the fence, for the first time since 2018.