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JERUSALEM (Ma'an) -- Israeli Civil Administration bulldozers demolished two steel structures and a store in the neighborhood of Sur Bahir village in southeastern Jerusalem on Tuesday, allegedly because they were built too close to the Israeli separation wall.

Locals told Ma’an that Israeli forces escorted by Civil Administration crews raided the Wadi al-Hummus area of Sur Bahir and demolished structures despite them being officially under Palestinian local jurisdiction.

Muhammad Abu Tair said that Israeli bulldozers demolished two of his steel structures and confiscated tools and floor tiles.

Abu Tair that the first structure was the foundations for a 150-square-meter home, but that he had stopped construction a year ago following a decision by the Israeli Civil Administration. The other structure, he said was 50-square-meters and used for storage.

Israeli bulldozers also reportedly demolished a store in the area, which had been built four years earlier, and confiscated material from inside the store.

A spokesperson for the Israeli municipality of Jerusalem did not immediately reply to a request for comment on the cases.

Demolitions of Palestinian structures and homes in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem have seen an unprecedented surge this year, with the number of structures demolished in the first half of 2016 well exceeding the total number of demolitions carried out in all of 2015.

More than 1,569 Palestinians have been displaced since the beginning of 2016 as a result of demolitions in the occupied territory, compared to 688 Palestinians displaced over the entirety of 2015, according to UN documentation.

Though the Israeli Jerusalem municipality has said it receives a disproportionately low number of permit applications from Palestinian communities in East Jerusalem compared to the Jewish population, and that Palestinian applications "see high approval ratings," procedures to apply for Israeli-issued building permits are lengthy, sometimes lasting for several years, while the application costs can reach up to 300,000 shekels ($79,180).

As four out of five of Palestinians in East Jerusalem live under the poverty line, applying for these permits is nearly impossible. As a result, only 7 percent of Jerusalem building permits go to Palestinian neighborhoods.