Israeli occupation authorities recorded a high number in demolishing Palestinian residential property and shops in 2016, according to a United Nations report released Wednesday.

The report of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Occupied Palestinian Territories (OCHA) said that during 2016 Israeli occupation authorities demolished or seized 1,093 Palestinian-owned structures throughout the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.

It also said that over 1,600 Palestinians, around half of them children, were displaced and the livelihoods of more than 7,000 others were affected. These figures are nearly double those of 2015 and the highest since 2009, when OCHA began the systematic monitoring of demolitions, the report showed.

The report noted that the vast majority of these structures were located in Area C and East Jerusalem and were destroyed or seized for lack of an Israeli-issued building permit.

In 2016, 17 per cent of the structures demolished or seized (190) were in East Jerusalem. This is more than double the figures for 2015 and the highest since 2000, the report said.

Source: Fana News