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HEBRON (Ma'an) -- Israeli forces on Wednesday demolished five structures in the village of Khasim al-Daraj east of Yatta in the southern West Bank.

The head of the village council Ibrahim al-Hathaleen said the structures were demolished because they supposedly did not have a permit.

Al-Hathaleen, however, disputed the charge and said that the demolitions were an "arbitrary" act of "revenge" and an attempt to "kick us off of our land and put settlers in our place."

The South Hebron Hills, known locally as Masafer Yatta, lie almost entirely in Area C, the 62 percent of the West Bank under full Israeli civil and security control since the 1993 Oslo Accords.

Around 3,000 Israeli settlers live in illegal Jewish-only settlements in the Yatta region, according to the Applied Research Institute Jerusalem.

The safety of these settlers is often given as an excuse for forced displacement of Palestinians.

Israel has destroyed more than 377 Palestinian properties in the West Bank and East Jerusalem so far in 2014, displacing more than 752 people, according to UNOCHA.