Demolition orders handed to Palestinian farmers

Ma’an- Israel's Civil Administration handed out demolition orders to three farmers in the northern West Bank on Tuesday, warning them that bulldozers would shortly arrive to demolish their greenhouses and farm buildings.

Officials from the agricultural village of Majdal in the Nablus region said water collecting buckets and plastic tenting were targeted in the orders, affecting the farms of Hani Bani Fadel, Ayed Bani Fadel and Imad Bani Fadel.

A tractor from the farm of Fadel was confiscated, a local official told Ma'an, and the farmer was told that he would have to appeal to the court to have it returned.

Further north, the Civil Administration demolished ten tin homes in a Bedouin agricultural community in the Jordan Valley, and filled in five agricultural wells in the southern district of Hebron.

In April, UN officials warned that home and building demolitions carried out by Israeli forces had doubled since the beginning of 2011. UN reports showed that demolitions in May had displaced a record number of Palestinian children.

An estimated 400 Palestinian homes and buildings have been demolished by Israeli forces since the start of the year.