NEW YORK - A United Nations expert on housing and land rights strongly condemned Israel’s systematic and methodical destruction of homes and confiscation of land by Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
Milloon Kothari, the UN Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of an adequate standard of living, on Tuesday told the press in New York that the international community was "duty bound" to intervene on the behalf of the Palestinian People.
"We must not lose focus of any aspect of the ongoing violence and occupation, particularly the human impact of land and water confiscation, punitive house demolition and forced evictions,” he said.
In the past 10 years, Israeli occupation authorities had demolished more than 2,200 residences, displacing some 13,000 Palestinians. At the same time, at least 155 Israeli settlements, home to more than 170,000 Israeli citizens, had been established, he added.
On Thursday IOF bulldozers razed eight houses in the southern West Bank city of Hebron on the grounds that the owners did not have a construction permit.
Four of them were in the Al-Shaabeh neighourhood, near the illegal Israeli settlement of “Qiryat Arba”. The other four were located in Hebron's Qilqis neighborhood, near the “Beit Haggai” settlement.
Milloon Kothari, the UN Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of an adequate standard of living, on Tuesday told the press in New York that the international community was "duty bound" to intervene on the behalf of the Palestinian People.
"We must not lose focus of any aspect of the ongoing violence and occupation, particularly the human impact of land and water confiscation, punitive house demolition and forced evictions,” he said.
In the past 10 years, Israeli occupation authorities had demolished more than 2,200 residences, displacing some 13,000 Palestinians. At the same time, at least 155 Israeli settlements, home to more than 170,000 Israeli citizens, had been established, he added.
On Thursday IOF bulldozers razed eight houses in the southern West Bank city of Hebron on the grounds that the owners did not have a construction permit.
Four of them were in the Al-Shaabeh neighourhood, near the illegal Israeli settlement of “Qiryat Arba”. The other four were located in Hebron's Qilqis neighborhood, near the “Beit Haggai” settlement.