BREAKING NEWS

State Comptroller: Only 30% of illegal West Bank construction demolished

The IDF has failed to tackle the widespread phenomenon of illegal West Bank construction, having demolished only 30% of such structures over a 19-year period, the State Comptroller said in a report it issued on Monday.
Between the years 1997-2013, according to the report, the Civil Administration found 20,086 instances of illegal construction in Area C of the West Bank, which is under Israeli civil and military control.
Of those illegal structures, 13,481 were built by Palestinians and 6,605 by Israelis.
In the ensuing 19 years, the Civil Administration razed only 5,620 of those buildings, 3,813 of which belonged to Palestinians and 1,807 to Israelis, the report stated.
It further found that between the years 2008 and 2013, the pace of illegal construction increased, while the number of demolitions decreased.
Forty-six percent of the illegal construction occurred between the years 2008 and 2013, during which time the Civil Administration identified 9,371 instances of illegal building, the state comptroller report said.
Some 6,547 of those structures were Palestinian and 2,824 were Israeli.