JERUSALEM (AP) — The Israeli government says it will evict two Jewish settler families from property they seized in the volatile West Bank city of Hebron.

As part of a campaign to tighten Jewish control of Hebron, two settler families took over four stalls in the town's Arab wholesale market a decade ago and turned them into homes.

The plots are owned by a Jewish family that left the city before Jordan took it over in the late 1940s. Palestinians have been renting it since as protected tenants.

On Monday, Israel it would clear the homes by April 24. It did not rule out the settlers' request to transfer the property to other Jews because the property belongs to Jews.

Hebron is home to 180,000 Palestinians. Several hundred ultranationalist settlers also live there.