The Israeli occupation authorities have escalated demolition policy against the Palestinians in an attempt to force them out of their homes and lands in favor of illegal settlement expansion and mass ethnic cleansing.

Yesterday,  Israeli occupation forces demolished two Palestinian houses and walls in the village of al-Diyouk al-Tahta, west of the occupied West Bank city of Jericho under the pretext that they were built in Area C of the occupied West Bank and without a permit.

One day earlier, the Israeli occupation forces today demolished two Palestinian-owned houses to the east of the occupied West Bank city of Hebron and ordered the demolition of an elementary school in Masafer Yatta, south of Hebron.

At the same time, the occupation authorities ordered a halt on the construction of eight houses in Haris village, north of the occupied West Bank city of Salfit.

In recent years, Israeli occupation authorities demolished hundreds of homes in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem on the grounds of lacking an Israeli construction permit, which is almost impossible to obtain for Palestinians under current Israeli policies.

Israel refuses to permit any Palestinian construction in Area C, which makes up more than 60 percent of the occupied West Bank and falls under full Israeli military rule, forcing Palestinians to build without a permit to provide shelters for their families.

In contrast, Israel much more easily gives over 700,000 Jewish Israeli settlers in incessantly-expanding colonial settlements building permits and provides them with roads, electricity, water and sewage systems that remain inaccessible to many neighboring Palestinians.