Israeli troops have demolished 12 tents and two wells, including one from the Roman era, near the West Bank city of al-Khalil, witnesses say.

The incident happened on Tuesday near al-Khalil’s Sussiya village where Azmi Shiyuki, a village official, said one of the wells dated back to the Roman era, AFP reported.

The United Nations has repeatedly condemned Israel for defying international calls to halt its demolition and settlement construction activities.

On February 1, the United Nations Organization for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs condemned Israel’s demolition of cisterns and wells.

"It is difficult to understand the reasoning behind the destruction of basic rain water collection systems, some of them very old, which serve marginalized rural and herder Palestinian communities where water is already scarce and where drought is an ever-present threat," said Maxwell Gaylard, the UN Humanitarian Coordinator for the occupied Palestinian territory.

He added that such deliberate demolitions in the occupied territories are also in contravention of Israel’s obligations under the international law.

In October 2010, Oscar Fernandez Taranco, the assistant UN secretary general for political affairs, criticized Israel for jeopardizing efforts to resolve the impasse in talks with the Palestinian Authority.

“We have a brief and crucial window to overcome the current impasse. The UN secretary general continues to believe that if the door to peace closes, it will be very hard to reopen,” Taranco told the UN Security Council.

Israel has been persistently proceeding with the demolition of Palestinian structures and construction of its settlements in the occupied territories of the West Bank and East al-Quds (Jerusalem).

(Press TV)