RAMALLAH, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- Israeli authorities demolished shops and issued military orders to seize dozens of dunams of Palestinian agricultural land on Tuesday, while Israeli settlers set fire to a Palestinian house and several vehicles in separate incidents across the West Bank, according to Palestinian sources.
Local sources said Israeli forces, accompanied by heavy machinery, stormed the Hasaka Road area northwest of Hebron and demolished five shops.
Israel also issued a military order to seize roughly nine dunams of land (0.9 hectares) in the northern Jordan Valley, 11 dunams of land in Jenin and 26.5 dunams of land in northwest Ramallah, under the pretext of "military purposes."
Mu'taz Bisharat, an official in charge of settlement affairs in the Tubas Governorate, told Xinhua the move was part of efforts to expand control over the northern Jordan Valley through land confiscation and the construction of military roads.
Meanwhile, Israeli settlers set fire to a Palestinian house, two vehicles and an agricultural structure in the town of Yatta, south of Hebron, according to Osama Makhamreh, an anti-settlement activist in the southern Hebron area.
In a separate incident, settlers set fire to two Palestinian vehicles in the village of Majdal Bani Fadil, south of Nablus, according to local sources.
Official Palestinian statistics showed that Israeli settlers carried out 1,369 attacks across the West Bank in October, marking an increase of 111.6 percent from 647 attacks recorded in September.
More than 600,000 Israeli settlers live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Israel occupied the West Bank in 1967 and has since established settlements there, which are considered illegal under international law. ■
