HEBRON (Ma'an) -- Israeli forces told residents of Um al-Kher village in the southern Hebron hills to evacuate parts of their property on Wednesday, in a move activists say is intended to pave the way for the expansion of a Jewish-only settlement nearby.

Rateb al-Jubur, a coordinator of the National Committee Against Settlements and the Wall, said that Israeli forces handed the Hathaleen family from the village east of Yatta notices telling them to remove gardens and barbed wire from lands they own in order for the lands to be annexed to the settlement of Karmel.

Al-Jubur said that the same family had been handed notices a few days earlier telling them to remove the barbed wire that surrounds 150 dunams (37 acres) of their land in the village, which is located in Area C and thus falls under full Israeli military control.

Al-Jubur also said that the Israeli forces on Wednesday seized a tractor that belongs to resident Omar Hasan Hoshieh from Yatta, and three cars that belong to Bedouins who live east of Yatta.