NNA - A Palestinian family returned to their West Bank home on Monday after breaking their Ramadan fast to find Jewish settlers had taken over their building with Israeli soldiers blocking their path.

The seizure took place in Hebron at iftar time with a video of the incident showing settlers storming the building in the Tel Rumeida area and raising the Israeli flag. Soldiers prevented the building's Palestinian residents from returning to their homes.

"It is time to stop the absurdity that a handful of messianic settlers determine the foreign and security policy of an entire country," said the Peace Now advocacy group.

"Settlers claim that they purchased the house and the entire system is already aligning itself with them, the army allows them to enter and prevents the Palestinian family from returning to their home, and then will be forced to secure the settlers in a new area in Hebron. The government is responsible and can and must evacuate the settlers immediately."

Israeli authorities refused to acknowledge the complaint from the family about the theft of their home with fears the new settlement enclave will see further restrictions on the movement of Palestinians in the neighbourhood.

Hebron is one of the most notorious parts of the West Bank for settler activity, with Palestinians in the city suffering attacks by settlers and extreme curbs on their civil liberties by Israeli forces, particularly in the H2 district.

Israeli forces have been deployed in large numbers to guard an Israeli settlement in the heart of Hebron, adding huge restrictions on free movement for Palestinian residents.

The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights has raised the alarm that settlement expansion in Hebron is altering the demographic makeup of the city, coinciding with Palestinian homes being demolished, land seized, and new settler outposts being established.

Israel settler expansion and repression of Palestinians in the West Bank has intensified under Netanyahu's new far-right government, with some ministers living on illegal settlements. --- New Arab

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