The evictions have increased tension in these Jerusalem communities. | Photo: Wafa

United Nations, February 21 (RHC)-- The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) warned that around 220 Palestinian families are being threatened with expulsion from their homes and territory by Israeli occupiers.

Approximately 970 people are affected by Israeli settlers, who live in the neighborhoods of Sheikh Jarrah and Silwan.  Palestinian families are being forced to leave their occupied homes following orders issued by Zionist forces.   The evictions have increased tension in these Jerusalem communities, with clashes between Palestinian residents and Israeli settlers, according to OCHA confirmation.

The international body similarly reiterated that the United Nations (UN) has "repeatedly insisted that forced evictions and demolitions in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, be halted."

Local media confirmed Sunday the punitive demolition of the house of Palestinian prisoner Mohammad Yousef Jaradat in the town of Silat al-Harithiya in the northern West Bank province of Jenin.  Also, large tracts of Palestinian land in the villages of Umm Batin and Tal as-Sabi in the Naqab region in southern occupied Palestine were bulldozed with bulldozers belonging to the Israeli occupation forces.

According to local media, some 300,000 Palestinian Bedouin with Israeli citizenship live in the Naqab region, which constitutes approximately half of the entire land mass of historic Palestine, where more than 90,000 of them live in at least 35 villages considered by Israel as unrecognized.

Israel's stance demonstrates its intention to continue apartheid against Palestine by refusing on February 17 to cooperate with the UN investigation into the escalation of violence in the Gaza Strip last May, in which some 270 people were killed.