Palestinians staged a strike on Tuesday in a number of Israeli cities and towns to protest the recent demolition of several Arab homes by the Israeli authorities.

Eyewitnesses told The Anadolu Agency that schools and shops were closed on Tuesday and streets mostly empty of pedestrians in several Arab-populated cities in Israel.

The strike comes in response to calls by the High Follow-Up Committee for Arab Citizens of Israel, which represents the interests of Palestinians who live in the self-proclaimed Jewish state.

The committee also called for a massive demonstration in Tel Aviv to protest the recent demolitions targeting Arab-owned homes.

"It has become clear that the Israeli regime and its current fascist government have declared war by razing Arab homes… on the pretext that they were built without permission," the committee declared Monday.

The Israeli authorities recently razed a number of homes in the southern Negev region, in Kafr Kanna in the north, and in several other locations, drawing angry reactions from the Israeli Arab community.

The term "Israeli Arabs" is used to denote the Palestinians who remained in historical Palestine following the creation of Israel in 1948.

There are around 1.6 million Arabs in Israel, accounting for roughly 20 percent of the country's total population, according to official Israeli figures.

PHOTO CAPTION

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivers a statement in front of new construction in the Jewish settlement known to Israelis as Har Homa and to Palestinians as Jabal Abu Ghneim, in an area of the West Bank that Israel captured in a 1967 war and annexed to the city of Jerusalem, in this March 16, 2015 file photo.

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