Israeli troops on Monday embarked on razing an Islamic Waqf-owned land near Jericho in the West Bank, according to local sources.

Moayad al-Helou, director of Jericho Islamic Waqf Department, said Israeli army broke into al-Musaqara, an outskirt of Jericho, and embarked on razing some 650 dunums of land owned by the Islamic Waqf Department.

According to a report by Applied Research Institute (ARIJ), “the consecutive Israeli governments adopted a policy to acquire much of the West Bank lands to build and expand the Israeli settlements by employing different methods.”

It said that, “Since 1967, Israel utilized all the laws that were once running in this part of the land; at least the ones that it can make use of to justify its occupation in an attempt to legalize the various methods it uses to carry out its systematic policy to confiscate Palestinians’ lands to make it available for the occupation Army or/ and for the Israeli settlers.”

Source: WAFA