On Thursday, Israeli soldiers demolished an under-construction quadruplex house in the Be’er Owna area in Beit Jala city, west of Bethlehem, in the occupied West Bank.
Media sources said the house is owned by Walid Zreina, and added that the Palestinian received the demolition order just a week earlier, and wasn’t granted sufficient time to appeal the decision.
The army claims the building was not licensed by the Civil Administration Office, the administrative branch of the illegal Israeli occupation in the West Bank.
It is worth mentioning that the army demolished the home for the first time four years ago before the Palestinian rebuilt it to shelter his family.
The army previously demolished several homes, owned by members of the Zreina family, and several other families in the area, as part of Israel’s illegal colonialist activities and policies.
While Israel continues to build and expand its illegal colonies, Palestinian communities, and towns, in occupied Jerusalem, and various areas in the occupied West Bank, continue to be denied the right to build homes and property.
All of Israel’s colonies in the occupied West Bank, including those in and around occupied East Jerusalem, are illegal under International Law, the Fourth Geneva Convention in addition to various United Nations and Security Council resolutions. They also constitute war crimes under International Law.
Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention states: “The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.” It also prohibits the “individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory”.
