Israeli bulldozers on Tuesday began demolishing Palestinian houses, mobile homes and agricultural structures in the town of Humsa in the southern West Bank to establish a "settlement belt" from northern to southern Hebron, according to a rights group and a local mayor.
The Bedouin rights group Al-Baidar said in a statement that Israeli bulldozers began razing homes in Humsa in the morning.
"The demolitions deepen Palestinian suffering, threaten the stability of families and come as part of a policy targeting Palestinian communities, homes and sources of livelihood and increasing the risk of forced displacement," the group said.
Palestinian institutions say Israel's demolitions aim to restrict Palestinian urban expansion and displace Palestinians, while Israel claims demolitions target buildings constructed without permits.
Israeli authorities rarely issue building permits to Palestinians, while expanding illegal settlement construction in the occupied West Bank, according to Palestinian, Israeli and international rights groups.
Ahmad Rajoub, mayor of Al-Kum and Al-Muwarraq municipality, which includes Humsa, denounced the continued home demolitions by the Israeli occupation.
"The past three months have seen intensified settlement activity in the area," Rajoub told Anadolu.
Since 1967, Israel has occupied the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. The international community considers Israeli settlements built on occupied land illegal under international law, a position rejected by Tel Aviv.
Around 750,000 occupiers live in 156 illegal settlements and 360 settlement outposts across the occupied West Bank, including occupied East Jerusalem, carrying out attacks aimed at forcibly displacing Palestinians.
"The area had witnessed attempts to establish pastoral settlement outposts, but residents confronted them, while Israeli authorities issued notices to landowners claiming their land was 'state land'," Rajoub said.
He stressed that landowners have documents proving ownership, including Ottoman-era documents, as well as a ruling he said was issued by an Israeli court in 1985 proving ownership of the land.
"Israeli forces began using equipment in the morning to demolish agricultural structures in the area," Rajoub said, calling the move "a policy to prevent Palestinian urban expansion" under the pretext that the area is classified as Area C.
Under the 1995 Oslo II Accord, which was supposed to be a temporary arrangement, the West Bank was divided into three areas: A, B and C. Area A is under full Palestinian control.
Area B is under Palestinian civil control and Israeli security control, while Area C, which makes up about 60% of the West Bank, remains under full Israeli control.
"Israeli measures are part of efforts to establish a settlement belt stretching from northern to southern Hebron, which would fragment the area and separate the western countryside from the city of Dura and Hebron," Rajoub said.
"The damage is not limited to the area where demolitions are taking place, but extends to hundreds of dunams of land whose owners have been ordered to evacuate under the claim that they are state land," he said.
Rajoub warned of an Israeli plan to establish several outposts in the area, which would fragment the territory, calling on rights groups and international institutions to intervene to stop the Israeli measures.
Since the start of Israel's genocidal war on the Gaza Strip in 2023, attacks by the Israeli army and occupiers against Palestinians and their property have intensified across the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem.
These attacks include the killing and arrest of Palestinians, demolition of homes and structures, burning of mosques and cars, bulldozing of agricultural land, preventing farmers from accessing their farms, forced displacement of Palestinians and settlement expansion on their land.
Palestinians warn that the Israeli measures aim to pave the way for the formal annexation of the West Bank, undermining the possibility of establishing a Palestinian state in line with relevant UN resolutions.
In 1948, Israel was established on Palestinian lands occupied by armed Zionist gangs that committed massacres and caused the displacement of at least 750,000 Palestinians, before Tel Aviv occupied the remaining Palestinian territories and refused to withdraw from them.
