A room and cistern demolished by the occupation in the Al-Baqa’a area, east of Hebron

• Violation: demolition of a room and a cistern
• Violation date: 04/06/2022.
• Location: Al-Baqa’a – east of Hebron city.
• The perpetrator: the so-called Israeli Civil Administration.
• Affected party: citizen Khalil Abu Odeh.

The violation details:

On Saturday, June 4, 2022, the Israeli occupation authorities demolished an agricultural cistern and an agricultural service room owned by Mr. Khalil Azzam Abu Odeh, under the pretext that it was built without a license in the Al-Baq`a area, east of Hebron.

According to LRC field monitoring unit, a force of the occupation border guird army, accompanied by personnel from and the so-called Planning and Construction Department of the Israeli “Civil Administration” in the occupied West Bank stormed Al-Baq`a area and demolished the room an d the cistern which are located  to the western bank of the bypass road No. 60 using a Hyundai-made hammer drill machine. The demolished cistern is 120 cubic-meter which was supposed to be used for the irrigation of 5 dunums of land cultivated with vegetables. The target cistern was built of concrete walls and concrete roof in 2020. On the top of the cistern a 40-square-meter room was built of bricks and concrete to be used as a rest place and as tore for agricultural, but it was demolished by the attacking force.

Photo 1: the rubble of the demolished room an d cistern

The affected citizen indicated that the occupation authorities had informed him of the demolition and removal of these two structures by sending a notice entitled “Demolition and removal of  new building” within 96 hours, based on Military Order No. 1797 which severely restricts the right to a hearing or the opportunity of appeal and allowes the Israeli military commander to summarily destroy Palestinian structure.

 The citizen Abu Odeh supports a family of 7 members, including 5 children, and the number of females in his family is 2. The settlement of “Kiryat Arba” is about 500 meters away from the target plot of land.  It should be noted that the Al-Baqa’a area is considered the Hebron’s food basket, especially in the production of grapes and vegetables, and it has been under constant attack by the occupation authorities since a long time.