Israeli soldiers demolished on Sunday morning 30 structures in Khirbit Tana, a small village near Beit Forik, east of the northern West Bank city of Nablus. The destruction caused by the latest Israeli violation rendered more than 180 villagers homeless.The attack was carried out during early morning hours on Sunday as the army surrounded the area and invaded it.
One of the demolished structures is a local school built from bricks with metal girders as a ceiling. Other demolished structures include tin structures for the sheep.
The Palestine News Agency, WAFA, reported that Ghassan Douglas, in charge of the settlements file in the northern part of the West Bank, said that this attack is not the first, and that Israel wants to remove the residents from the area and from their lands to replace them with Jewish settlers.
In February on 2009, the Israeli High Court issued a ruling that cannot be appealed, stating that all structures in Khirbit Tana must be demolished, and that the Palestinian farmers should be removed from the village.
Tana is inhibited by 50 Palestinian families who own farmlands and depend on agriculture as their main sources of livelihood.
The villagers are originally from Beit Forik as they owned lands before Israeli illegal occupied the West Bank in 1967.
Israel does not recognize their ownership of the lands, and carried repeated attacks targeting them and their lands, while at the same times encouraged Jewish illegal settlement activities in the area.
Should the villages be removed from their lands, Israel would annex 18.000 Dunams (4447.89 Acres). The lands are owned by hundreds of residents of Beit Forik.
