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BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) -- Israeli forces demolished three buildings belonging to a Palestinian family in the city of al-Ludd in northern Israel early on Wednesday, while demolition orders were delivered to Palestinian homes in the Haifa district.

Sources told Ma’an that Israeli forces and border guards facilitated the demolition of the three buildings which belonged to the Shaaban family in the northern al-Ludd neighborhood of Karm al-Tuffah without any prior notice.

Witnesses said that the Israeli police evacuated the women and children, and demolished the buildings while they were on the streets.

The buildings were constructed in 1998.

Meanwhile, Israeli forces delivered demolition orders to Palestinians in the town of Isfiya in the Haifa district, according to locals.

One of the residents who received a demolition order, Sheikh Saadeh Zaher told Ma’an that the police demanded that he demolish his own home in order to avoid additional fines for security which would be hired to escort the demolition team if Israeli forces were to carry out the demolition.

Locals from the town gathered at Zaher's home, and pledged to prevent the demolitions from being carried out by organizing a sit-in on Thursday to protest the order.

The demolitions came just two days after Israeli forces demolished another building in northern Israel. At the time, Abdullah Abu Maarouf, a Knesset member from the Arab Joint List, called the demolition a “savage crime,” and added that “our main national aim is to prevent the demolition of any Arab home in the country, especially Arabs who built their houses on lands they inherited from their ancestors,” employing the term often used in Israel to refer to Palestinians with Israeli citizenship.

While Israeli law guarantees Palestinian citizens of Israel the same equality as Jewish Israelis, in practice there are claims of discrimination in government funding and a raft of other issues.

In 2015, Israeli rights group Adalah said that only 4.6 percent of new homes built in Israel were in Palestinian towns and villages, despite the fact that Palestinians make up over 20 percent of the population.

Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, who number between 500,000 and 600,000, receive four times as many housing units as Palestinian citizens Israel, the group added.

Palestinian communities in Israel and occupied East Jerusalem have long been targeted by discriminatory Israeli policies, whether through “divide and conquer” tactics, attempts at forcibly displacing Bedouin communities, and what has been denounced as a policy of "Judaization" of Jerusalem and Israel at the expense of other religious communities.

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