On Wednesday, Israeli forces invaded the town of Hizma, northeast of occupied East Jerusalem, and demolished a Palestinian home. In Hebron, illegal Israeli colonizers burnt a residential shed.
Media sources reported that a large contingent of Israeli soldiers and police, accompanied by a military bulldozer, stormed the town after sealing off its entrances.
The troops proceeded to raze a two-story residence owned by Moutawakel Al-Khatib, without prior warning.
In a related incident, a group of paramilitary Israeli colonizers, escorted by Israeli soldiers, invaded the area of Masafer Yatta, south of Hebron in the southern West Bank. The group set fire to a residential shed belonging to Nasser Shreiteh.
The colonizers originated from the Susya illegal colony, built on land stolen from the nearby Palestinian village of Susiya, an area that has faced ongoing threats of demolition and near-daily violations by Israeli forces and settlers.
As of mid-2025, Israeli occupation authorities have demolished at least 627 Palestinian structures across the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem.
These include homes, commercial buildings, and essential community infrastructure, often razed under the pretext that they lacked Israeli-issued construction permits, which are exceedingly difficult for Palestinians to obtain due to longstanding discriminatory planning regulations.
In East Jerusalem, the pace of demolitions has intensified. Neighborhoods such as Silwan, Jabal al-Mukaber, Al-Isawiya, and Sheikh Jarrah have seen scores of homes reduced to rubble.
Between October 2023 and late 2024, more than 320 homes were destroyed in the city alone, displacing thousands of residents.
Entire communities now grapple not only with material loss but also the deep psychological toll of repeated trauma and forced displacement.
Across the broader West Bank, particularly in Area C, where Israel exercises full civil and military control, demolitions have surged.
In 2024, over 1,000 Palestinian structures were demolished, and the trend has continued into 2025.
These violations have uprooted countless families, severed access to water, electricity, and education, and often coincide with the rapid expansion of Israeli settlements in the same areas.
This ongoing policy of demolition, targeting some of the most vulnerable communities while enabling settlement entrenchment, has drawn mounting international criticism and condemnation from human rights organizations.
For many affected Palestinians, rebuilding is virtually impossible, not only due to financial hardship but also because any new construction risks meeting the same fate.
