Israel to demolish 13,000 Palestinian homes in the West Bank

On September 7, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) released a report saying that about 13,000 Palestinian homes in the West Bank are about to be demolished under Israeli orders.

The Israeli government has announced that it will demolish Palestinian homes built without permits, but Palestinians say Israel has consistently refused to grant them building permits.

According to OCHA, these demolition orders will lead to displacement and disruption of Palestinian livelihoods, causing security instability.

Illustrative photo. (Source: AFP/VNA)

The OCHA report cites figures that Israel issued more than 14,000 demolition orders for Palestinian homes between 1988 and 2014. Last August, in one week alone, Israel ordered the demolition of 63 homes and other structures, leaving 132 Palestinians homeless.

Last month, 31 international organizations, including Oxfam and Amnesty International, criticized the "wave" of widespread demolitions of Palestinian homes in the West Bank, saying Tel Aviv was using the measure to facilitate the illegal expansion of Jewish settlements.

More than half a million Jews currently live in more than 120 settlements built since 1967, when Israel occupied Palestinian territory in the West Bank. The United Nations and many countries consider Jewish settlements in the West Bank illegal because they violate the Geneva Convention.

According to Vietnam+