Palestinians living in cave face Israeli demolition

A Palestinian family living in a cave in a small village in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin is facing the threat of demolition by Israeli authorities, Anadolu Agency reported.

Thirty-year-old civil engineer Ahmed Amarneh turned a cave in Fraseen village into a place of residence for him and his wife and daughter, after occupation authorities forbade him from building a house in the area.

“I found an opportunity to live in this cave because it did not require building anything new,” Amarneh said. “To our shock, they still came. We were living in this cave, and they still said it was still not allowed and that we have four days to evacuate for them to demolish it.”

Amarneh’s home is not the first Palestinian structure to receive an evacuation and demolition notice, but it may be the first built inside a cave which Israeli authorities have threatened to destroy.

“It’s evident they just don’t want us [Palestinians] to be here, in a cave or otherwise, and it shows their racial discrimination,” he continued. “Nearby we have a settler who lives here and he has all life’s necessities.”

According to Mahmoud Amarneh, a local official, other structures in the village have also received demolition notices and agricultural activity in the area has been banned.

Roughly 650,000 Israeli settlers currently live in illegal settlements built in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem since 1967, in breach of international law.

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