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Two Palestinians living in Masafer Yatta, anÌýarea of the occupied West BankÌýunder threat of expulsion, were ordered to remove structures by the Israeli army, according to reports.

Israeli troops entered Maeen, a village in Masafer Yatta, telling one Palestinian to get rid of a caravan, activist Fouad Al-Imour said.

A second Palestinian was told a tin structure had to go, Al-Imour added, according to official PalestinianÌýnews agency Wafa.

Palestinian farmers in Lasifer village, also in Masafer Yatta, came under assault from Israeli settlers who pelted them with stones, driving them off their land.

It comes after Israeli forces last week demolished several Palestinian homes in Masafer Yatta, near Hebron, with plans to replace the villages with a military firing range.

Israel recently told the Palestinian Authority the residents of the area's 12 villages will soon be removed.

"Israel says it's a temporary evacuation for military drills, but there is no guarantee that residents would be allowed back in their homes," Jamal Jumaa, coordinator of anti-Israeli separation barrier campaign Stop the Wall, previously told °®Âþµº.

"This is the continuation of a decades-long Israeli effort to force Palestinians out of Masafer Yatta."

An Israeli Supreme Court decision in May opened the door for over 1,000 Palestinians in the area to be expelled from their homes.

Israel's Supreme Court says Palestinians living in the villages were not permanent residents of the area in the 1980s when the army claimed the area as a firing zone.

Locals and Israeli human rights organisations strongly dispute this, saying Palestinians were living in Masafer Yatta before 1967 when Israel began its illegal occupation of the West Bank.