RAMALLAH-
Aid agencies operational in occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem on Friday expressed alarm at a rise in Israeli demolitions of Palestinian property.
The agencies have said that since the renewal of US-backed peace negotiations in July 2013 till last December, the number of demolitions has increased by almost half and the displacement of Palestinians by nearly three-quarters as compared to the same period in 2012.
This week, the International Red Cross announced a halt to delivering tents to Palestinians made homeless by demolitions West Bank due to Israeli obstruction and confiscation of aid.
“International and local aid organizations have faced increasingly severe restrictions in responding to the needs created by the unlawful demolition of civilian property, in violation of Israel’s obligation to facilitate the effective delivery of aid,” wrote the groups, which included Oxfam and Christian Aid.
Israeli military and political officials have not commented on the report.
Israel captured the West Bank and East Jerusalem, along with the Gaza Strip, in the 1967 war. It quit Gaza in 2005, and the enclave is now governed by Hamas Islamists opposed to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s peace-making strategy.
The Palestinians want the more than half a million Jewish settlers there, along with Israeli soldiers, to leave the occupied territories. Israel balks at such sweeping pullouts, citing historical claims on the biblical lands.
