Ghassan Daghlas, the Palestinian Authority official monitoring settler activity in the northern West Bank, said “Israeli military bulldozers, backed by security forces and Israeli Civil Administration, arrived at Khirbet Tana on early Sunday and started razing the structures.”

Daghlas said that Israeli forces demolished structures including several homes, sheep barns, agricultural installations and tore several tents the Palestinian Authority donated to the villagers after the buildings were demolished earlier this month.

He said Israeli forces declared the area a closed military zone and prevented leftist activists and journalists from entering it to show solidarity or to cover the demolition.

The official added 180 residents are now displaced after the demolition of their homes.

He said that the structures were demolished under the pretext that they were built in Area C without needed building permits.

The Israeli Civil Administration said the structures were demolished since they are located in a Jordan Valley fire zone.

The Palestinian Minister of Settlements and Separation Wall Affairs Maher Ghnaim said in response to the Israeli move that “PA will rebuild the structures Israeli forces demolished in the village.”

Ghnaim added the PA is “determined to confront Israeli atrocities against Palestinians and their properties.”

Khirbet Tana is east of Nablus and just west of the Mekhora Jewish settlement. The people of the village are primarily shepherds and farmers who established themselves in the area since 1940, and who rely on the nearby springs and shared water wells for their animals and crops.

Israeli soldiers have been accused of constantly harassing villagers, raiding homes, pursuing and detaining shepherds, destroying crops and allowing settlers to carry out attacks.

In 2005, Israeli forces razed a group of homes, but families insisted on staying and rebuilt as best they could. At that time many people were arrested and hundreds of animals confiscated.

In April 2008, the Israeli High Court of Justice issued a decision calling for the destruction of Al-Aqaba village, located on the slope of the Jordan valley, and the transfer of its 300 inhabitants.

The same policy was also carried out against vulnerable communities, including the Jahalin and other groups of Bedouin as well as small villages in the Jordan Valley. Expulsions are followed by the expropriation of the land for the expansion of Jewish settlements.