LONDON: Israeli forces demolished a Palestinian residential building in Al-Walaja, a village northwest of Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank, on Wednesday, for being built without a permit. The three-story building belonged to brothers Yahya, Mustafa, Hamza and Mohammed Yousef Rabah. Each floor measured around 170 sq. meters, according to the Palestine News Agency. Israeli forces have also bulldozed a plot of 500 sq. meters belonging to Khaled Mousa Al-Araj, uprooting more than 50 fruit trees, including olive and almond trees. They demolished water tanks, a 35-meter-long, 15-meter-wide retaining wall and a staircase, leaving the area in havoc, the report added. Israel regularly denies Palestinians building permits, while illegally expanding Jewish settlements in Jerusalem and the West Bank. Israel occupied the West Bank and East Jerusalem in June 1967 and has since maintained a military-run regime over security and civilian matters related to Palestinian lives. It also occupies nearly 70 percent of the Gaza Strip after the war erupted in the enclave after October 2023. The Israeli regime faces charges of war crimes and genocide in the Occupied Territories.