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by IMEMC News & Agencies

Israeli authorities, Tuesday, notified local residents of At-Tabban, a small village to the south of Hebron, of demolition orders for two animal barns and a residential facility in the village.

Rateb Jabour, of the Anti-Settlement Committee in Hebron, said an Israeli army force broke into the village and served notices to Nasser Abul-Abed and Samir Hamamdah, two local residents, informing them that the said structures would be demolished in a week.

Jabour said that more than 120 similar notices -- in which the demolition of Palestinian-owned animal barns, residential structures, tents, fodder warehouses and water tanks were included -- were handed to local villagers last year alone.

Such demolitions are frequently carried out by the Israeli army and the Israeli Civil Administration in Area C, which is under full Israeli control despite being in the West Bank, on unpermitted construction pretences.

Issuance of construction permits for Palestinians living in Area C, under full Israeli administrative and military control, is strictly limited, forcing Palestinians residing in such areas to construct without obtaining the necessary permits.

Area C, teeming with Israeli settlements and outposts, makes up 60% of the total area of the West Bank, making the chance of a viable Palestinian state near to impossible.

In realted news, Ma'an News Agency reports that Israeli forces have confiscated hundreds of dunams of Palestinian land in Beit Ula town, northwestern Hebron, under the pretext that the property is "state land."

An Israeli court issued an order, earlier in January, for the confiscation of hundreds of dunams in the al-Mekhath and Attus areas of Beit Ula, to "Judaize" Area C and empty it from its original residents, coordinator of a local popular committee, Issa al-Emla, said.

Al-Emla added that owners of these lands have farmed them and resided on them since the Ottoman era, and that Israel started raiding and razing the lands in 1982, in preparation for seizing them.

In addition that Israel was executing its plans to take over Area C, which is around 60 percent of the West Bank.

The confiscated lands belong to Usama Abu Nasir, Farid al-Latif Atrash al-Emla, Ahmad Abd al-Rahim al-Emla, Hamdi Abd al-Muti al-Emla, Harbi Abd al-Muti al-Emla, Muhammad Khalil Abd al-Aziz al-Emla, Issa Abd al-Hafez al-Emla and Fares Wahid Abd al-Aziz al-Emla.

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