Ghassan Daghlas, the Palestinian Authority official monitoring settler activity in the northern West Bank, said that the Israeli soldiers handed the demolition orders to the families in the village of Yitma, to the south of Nablus.

Daghlas added that the Israeli forces ordered the owners to leave their homes "as soon as possible since they built their homes without legal permission from the Israeli authorities."

He added that the "Israeli authorities have handed demolishing orders to 13 Palestinian families in the village in recent months under the same pretexts."

The official denounced the Israeli measures "which aim at pressuring the Palestinians while the Israeli occupiers continue their vandalism."

Early Tuesday, the Israeli Minister of Housing and Construction Minister Ariel Atias said that the Israeli government is continuing on with its preparations to construct settlements in the West Bank at the end of the temporary building freeze despite international pressure.

Atias said his ministry is doing "everything to be ready with plans for tenders the day the freeze ends." The minister's comments are in line with statements made by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other ministers, who have in the past announced that they will insist the freeze ends on Sept. 26, 2010.

"We are moving forward with our plans to ensure an available supply of apartments to market at the end of the freeze," Atias said during a Torah dedication ceremony in the settlement of Maale Hever in Mount Hebron.

The anti-settlement Israeli watchdog Peace Now said that "resuming construction in the (Palestinian) territories is an historic mistake which will cause an unprecedented isolation of Israel in the world."

Peace Now Secretary-General Yariv Oppenheimer said in a press statement that the ministry is "doing everything in its power to have tender plans ready for the day the freeze ends." The Peace Now chief claimed such remarks "compromise negotiations and reveal the government's plan to deepen its hold of the territories."