LONDON: Israeli authorities informed Palestinian residents of Idhna village, located west of Hebron, about a plan to remove the electricity network in the area as the Israeli government intends to strengthen control in the occupied West Bank.

Jaber Tmaizi, the mayor of Idhna, said that Israeli troops issued a notice demanding the removal of an electricity network that supplies Bir Al-Balouta area, located west of the town.

He added that this notice demonstrates Israel’s continued efforts to tighten its control over the residents of Idhna, aiming to displace them closer to the separation wall to expand the Adora settlement nearby.

On Tuesday, the Energy Minister Eli Cohen said that recent measures adopted by the government that deepen Israeli control in the occupied West Bank amounted to implementing “de facto sovereignty.”

Cohen said that steps “actually establish a fact on the ground that there will not be a Palestinian state.”

Palestinians, Arab countries, and human rights groups have described the moves announced on Sunday as an annexation of the territory, which is home to approximately 3.4 million Palestinians who aspire to use it for a future state.

On Tuesday, Israeli forces demolished two homes belonging to the Qabha family in the Khor Al-Dabaa neighborhood of Bartaa, which is located in Jenin in the northern West Bank. The demolition was carried out under the pretext that the houses were built without the necessary construction permits.

Earlier this year, Israeli forces also demolished four homes in Bartaa, again citing the absence of permits as the reason for the demolitions.