Jerusalem, January 7 (RHC)-- Israeli forces have demolished five dwellings belonging to Palestinian Bedouin families in the Abu Nuwar community east of Jerusalem, leaving more than two dozen people homeless.

According to Dawood al-Jahalin, a spokesperson for the Abu Nuwar Bedouin community, the Israeli military and police vehicles surrounded the area on Wednesday morning and bulldozers razed the dwellings as well as an agricultural structure afterward, Palestinian Ma’an news agency reported. He added that Israeli forces did not give the Palestinian families any time to collect their belongings before the demolition process.

"I showed them a court decision banning demolition, but the officer in charge refused to see it and instead told me he had a demolition order from the Civil Administration," Jahalin said, adding that the families will rebuild their dwellings.

Abu Nuwar is one of several Bedouin villages that have faced forced evacuation as the Israeli regime is seeking to build thousands of illegal settler units in the E1 zone. Settlement construction in the E1 zone would divide the occupied West Bank and make the creation of a Palestinian state almost impossible.

Israeli authorities have been carrying out forced evacuations against Bedouins since 1949. The demolition of Bedouin homes is part of the regime’s massive land-grab policy, which will forcefully displace thousands of people.