Photos: Palestinian family in cave home faces Israeli eviction

Ahmed Amarneh's home, with a wooden door opening onto cushion-lined rooms, is not the first Palestinian residence in the occupied West Bank to receive a demolition notice from Israel. But it may be the first built inside a cave which Israel has threatened to destroy.

Amarneh, a 30-year-old civil engineer, lives with his family in the northern West Bank village of Farasin, where Israel insists it must approve any new residential construction and can tear down homes built without permits.

"I tried twice to build (a house), but the occupation authorities told me it was forbidden to build in the area," Amarneh told AFP, using a term for Israel used by some Palestinians.

Amarneh throws his daughter beneath a skylight hole as they play together. Convinced he would never get Israeli approval to build a home in his village, Amarneh set his sights on a cave in the foothills overlooking Farasin.

The wife of Ahmed Amarneh holds her daughter at their home. Amarneh said he figured that as an ancient, natural formation, Israel could not possibly argue that the cave was illegally built, while the Palestinian Authority (PA) agreed to register the land in his name.

Amarneh, whose handyman skills are considerable, sealed the entrance to the cave with a stone wall and installed a wooden door at its centre.

He fashioned a kitchen, a living room and sleeping areas for himself, his pregnant wife and their young daughter. There is even lodging for guests.

He told AFP he had been living there for a year and half, but received a demolition notice from the Israeli authorities in July, along with 20 other Palestinian families in Farasin.

Sheep feed in a make-shift enclosure inside Amarneh's home. Amarneh told AFP he was "surprised" to learn that he had built anything illegally. "I didn't make the cave. It has existed since antiquity," he said, holding his young daughter in his arms.

Amarneh (L), and family members share a meal at his home. "I don't understand how they can prevent me from living in a cave. Animals live in caves and are not thrown out. So, let them treat me like an animal and let me live in the cave," said Amarneh.

Arab residents established the village of Farasin in 1920, said local council head Mahmud Ahmad Nasser. It was abandoned during the 1967 Six-Day War, the year Israeli occupation of the West Bank began. But from the 1980s, former residents began to return to the area. Nasser put its current population at around 200.

The wife of Ahmed Amarneh prepares coffee at his home, built in cave in the village of Farasin.