A United Nations agency has said several EU-funded structures are at risk of being demolished by Israel in the West Bank.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has published its latest demolitions and displacement report for the West Bank.

It said demolitions in January remained at 2018 levels, with two EU-funded structures having been demolished.

Three tents which were being used as a school in Hebron were also seized.

Overall, 40 Palestinian-owned structures were demolished or seized by the Israeli authorities last month - almost the same as the monthly average recorded in 2018.

This resulted in the displacement 44 people and otherwise affected some 200 others.

The UN agency said: "One of the demolitions took place on punitive grounds and the remaining occurred due to the lack of Israeli-issued building permits, which are almost impossible to obtain."

It said that over 70% of the structures targeted were in 11 communities.

In one of them, Beit Iksa (Jerusalem), the livelihoods of 50 people were affected by the demolition of four animal structures, a cesspool and the walls surrounding one home with losses estimated at over €303,000.

Beit Iksa, which has around 1,700 residents, is another "dislocated" Palestinian community in the Jerusalem area that has been physically separated from the rest of the West Bank - but residents are not allowed to enter East Jerusalem.

The report added: "In As Simiya village (Hebron), three tents, provided by the Palestinian Ministry of Education to serve as a school, were seized, affecting 45 children.

"This is the third time in four weeks that structures for this school have been seized."

In a joint statement issued on January 30th, the humanitarian coordinator and UNICEF expressed deep concern "by the high number of reported incidents of interference in or near schools in the West Bank since the beginning of the school year".

While in Imreiha village (Jenin), two structures funded by the EU and its member states - including a home and a mobile latrine - were confiscated.

As a result, four people were displaced.

In the same village, in May 2018, Israeli authorities issued a stop-work order against an EU-funded school worth €28,000.

"Seven other EU-funded structures in three other communities were served with demolition and stop-work orders during January", the OCHA has said.

In East Jerusalem, 10 structures were targeted during January - while a Palestinian refugee family became at heightened risk of forced eviction from its home, following an Israeli court ruling in favour of a settler organisation claiming ownership over the land.

The home is located in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood, where the family was settled in the 1950s with the support of the United Nations and the Jordanian government.

The OCHA said at least 870 Palestinians in East Jerusalem have pending eviction cases, filed mainly by settler organisations.

The Israeli military also destroyed an apartment in the town of Yatta with explosives "on punitive grounds."

The apartment was home to a Palestinian who stabbed and killed an Israeli settler in September 2018, and was arrested after he was shot and injured.