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Scene. Published Maan News
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JERICHO (Ma'an) -- Israeli forces demolished two houses in the al-Fasayil village north of Jericho City in the northern occupied West Bank's Jordan Valley area, on Monday morning.

Head of the al-Fasayil village council, Ibrahim Abu Awad, condemned the demolition carried out by the Israeli authorities.

He identified the owners of the houses as Ayman Youssef Qureinat and Hassan al-Zayid, pointing out that both families consist of ten members, who have become hopeless.

Abu Awad called for immediate protection for Palestinians of the Jordan Valley region.

Forming a third of the occupied West Bank and with 88 percent of its land classified as Area C, the Jordan Valley has long been a strategic area of land unlikely to return to Palestinians following Israel's occupation in 1967.

Israel rarely grants Palestinians permits to build in the West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem, although the estimated 550,000 Jewish Israeli settlers in the occupied Palestinian territory are more easily given building permits and allowed to expand their homes and properties.

Nearly all Palestinian applications for building permits in Area C -- the more than 60 percent of the West Bank under full Israeli military control -- are denied by the Israeli authorities, forcing communities to build illegally.