Israel razes Palestinian lands in Jenin ready for Separation Wall

Israeli forces on Wednesday razed lands in the northern occupied West Bank district of Jenin as well as the southern West Bank district of Hebron, according to official Palestinian Authority (PA)-owned Wafa news agency.

The report said that Israeli forces raided the Jenin-area village of Thahr Al-Malehto and razed nearly 50 dunums (0.05 square kilometres) of land, consisting of dozens of olive trees, allegedly in order to build a section of Israel’s illegal Separation Wall around the illegal Israeli settlement of Shaked.

Wafa said that Palestinian residents of the village have been “left with no road to lead to their lands from the northern side of the village,” adding that once the sections of the wall is completed, it will “eat up” more than 1,000 dunums (one square kilometre) of land belonging to residents from Jenin-area towns such as Yaabad and Nazlat Al-Sheikh Zaid.

In Hebron, Israeli bulldozers reportedly razed six dunums (0.006 square kilometres) of agricultural lands in the village of Al-Baqaa in the eastern Hebron district.

Read: Israel demolishes Palestinian homes in Hebron

The lands are reportedly located near a road that leads to the Israeli settlement of Kiryat Arba.

Built in 2002, the Separation Wall sits at eight metres tall in places, more than twice the height of the Berlin Wall. Snaking through the occupied West Bank, the Wall cuts off villages and people from their own land, and often splits communities in two. In 2004, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) called for the Wall to be dismantled and labelled it illegal due to the overwhelming economic and social problems it caused for Palestinians. Today the Wall still stands.