Israeli authorities demolish a Palestinian home in Lod

Israeli authorities on Sunday demolished a Palestinian house in the Palestinian city of Lod inside Israel, local witnesses said.

Israeli forces, accompanied by bulldozers, raided the al-Mahatta neighbourhood in Lod and demolished the house, witness reports said.

The house belonged to Ibrahim Touri, a Palestinian man who has an Israeli citizenship.

"The house demolition came under the Israeli pretext it was built without getting a permit from the Israeli government," Touri told local media.

In the 1948 war, about 957,000 Palestinians, or 66 percent of the Palestinians who lived in historical Palestine, were expelled and displaced.

The remaining Palestinians continued to live in their cities, which were inside Israel's 1948 border. They were subsequently given Israeli citizenships.

The Palestinian community today makes up 21 percent of Israel's total population of more than 9.3 million.

Palestinians in Israel have suffered discrimination from authorities, according to rights groups reports, and have seen many of their homes demolished under the pretext of not having the required permits - which is often not granted or takes a long time to be approved.

"Only 4.6 percent of new homes built in Israel are in Palestinian towns and villages," the Legal Center for Arab Monitory Rights in Israel, Adala, has reported. "Even though Palestinians make up over 20 percent of the population."

"The difficulty for Palestinians in Israel to obtain building permits forces them to expand or build homes and structures without permits, which are at risk of being torn down later by the Israeli authorities," Adala said.