UN concerned over new West Bank demolition plans

The United Nations raised concerns Wednesday over newly announced preliminary demolition plans in a Palestinian Bedouin village in the West Bank that threaten dozens of buildings including an elementary school.

Israeli officials have over the past week issued dozens of stop work orders threatening “nearly every structure” in a part of the village of Khan al-Ahmar, the UN said.

The United Nations humanitarian coordinator for the Palestinian territories, Robert Piper, visited the village where the school is among 140 structures at risk of demolition.

“Khan al-Ahmar is one of the most vulnerable communities in the West Bank struggling to maintain a minimum standard of living in the face of intense pressure from the Israeli authorities to move,” he said in a statement.

“This is unacceptable and it must stop.”

Israel says the buildings were built without permits.

The UN says such permits are all but impossible to obtain for Palestinians.

The Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories confirmed to The Times of Israel that all illegal structures in the village were given orders to “cease construction.”

The body, which interfaces with Palestinian residents of the West Bank and Gaza, made no mention of orders to leave the buildings but said that the residents were invited to a hearing about the buildings on Thursday where they would be able to present their case.

A number of traditionally nomadic Bedouin communities are based east of Jerusalem, where rights groups fear demolitions could eventually clear the way for further Israeli settlement construction.

This could partly divide the West Bank between north and south while further isolating the territory from East Jerusalem, which the Palestinians see as their future capital.

The UN says there are 46 communities in the central West Bank at risk of forcible transfer, ousting approximately 7,000 residents.