Israeli troops abduct 30 Palestinians, demolish homes in West Bank

Israeli forces have abducted at least 30 Palestinians, including several children, and demolished many homes during massive overnight raids in different parts of the occupied West Bank.

In the early hours of Tuesday, dozens of Israeli soldiers invaded Balatah refugee camp, east of Nablus; Nablus city; Beit Fajjar town, south of Bethlehem; Aida refugee camp, north of Bethlehem; Silwad town, east of Ramallah; Qalqiliah and Ya’bad town near the West Bank and city of Jenin, the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society (PPS) reported.

The Israeli army announced in a statement that it had arrested 34 Palestinians in different parts of the West Bank.

In recent months, Israeli forces have frequently raided the houses of Palestinians in the West Bank, detaining dozens of people, who are then transferred to Israeli prisons, where they are kept without any charges.

According to the Palestinian prisoners’ rights group Addameer, there are currently 7,000 Palestinians held at Israeli jails and detention facilities, seven lawmakers among them. Three Palestinian Legislative Council members are in “administrative detention.”

The so-called administrative detention is a sort of imprisonment without trial or charge that allows Israel to incarcerate Palestinians for periods of up to six months, which can be renewed an infinite number of times.

Some prisoners have been held in administrative detention for up to eleven years.

Home demolition

Meanwhile, several Israeli army vehicles and bulldozers invaded the village of Khirbit Tana, east of the northern West Bank city of Nablus, and demolished several residential unites after forcing their residents out.

The soldiers surrounded the entire community before invading it, said Ghassan Daghlas, a Palestinian Authority official in charge of Israeli settlements’ file in the northern part of the West Bank.

The village has been subject to frequent invasions and destruction, including the demolition of its only school, many residential units and barns.

The occupied West Bank has seen an unprecedented rise in the demolition of Palestinian homes this year, with the number of buildings destroyed in the first half of 2016 already standing well beyond the total number of demolitions carried out in all of 2015.

According to a United Nations report, Israel has made over 1,383 Palestinians homeless since January as a result of demolitions in the occupied territories, compared to 688 Palestinians internally displaced during the entire 2015.

Israeli authorities rarely issue home-building permits for Palestinians, forcing many to build homes without granting the so-called permits.

On the other hand, according to Americans for Peace Now, the number of Israeli settlements has grown dramatically over the past 20 years, with the construction of 11,000 new settler units authorized under Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Over half a million Israelis live in more than 230 illegal settlements built since the 1967 Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem al-Quds.

All Israeli settlements are illegal under international law. Tel Aviv has defied calls to stop the expansion of settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories.

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