Early Thursday morning, Palestinian residents of Al Walaja village, west of Bethlehem, confronted the attempt to demolish retaining walls under the pretext of no building permit.
Khader al-Aaraj, a member of the local council in the village, said in an interview with the Palestinian News Network (PNN) that the Israeli occupation forces broke into the village early this morning. The Israeli patrols was accompanied by bulldozers and had the intention of demolishing the walls of a number of plots under the pretext that they were build without permission.
Al-A’raj added that the residents did not receive eviction notices, and therefore rejected the attempts of the occupation to demolish these walls. The villagers confronted the Israeli solider with over a hundred men, women and children standing in front of the bulldozers for more than an hour and a half.
Al-A’raj confirmed that the villagers had formed a committee to defend the houses threatened with demolition. There was a joint agreement to protest the repeated demolition attempts, along with legal monitoring and exposing the occupation policy in an attempt to empty the village. He says that a number of houses are under the threat of demolition for construction without permit.
Al-A’raj said a court order was won blocking demolition of 16 homes out of 28 slated for destruction. The occupation authorities seek to ignore these demands in an attempt to demolish the legal existence of my people. The village is their land, stressing that the village is determined to confront the Israeli’s plans for the village.
PNN
