Israeli military bulldozers on Monday demolished a Palestinian house and leveled a plot of land in Artas village, southwest of the southern West Bank city of Bethlehem, according to a local official.

Head of the Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission office in Bethlehem, Hassan Breijieh, was quoted by WAFA news agency as stating that Israeli forces escorted a bulldozer to Khallet al-Nahleh area of the village, where the heavy machinery tore down an 80-square-meter house and leveled a plot of land belonging to a local resident.

He explained that the owner had title deeds proving ownership of the land.

Breijieh said Khallet al-Nahleh is regularly targeted by Israel due to its location near illegal Israeli settlements, particularly Efrat settlement, and Israel wants to take over Palestinian land in order to link the area settlements together.

Like so many other villages in Palestine, Artas has been subjected to almost continual land theft for Israeli settlements, bypass roads, and military installations.

Israel has constructed Efrat colonial settlement on most of the village land, while the apartheid barrier took more of its land.