JERUSALEM, April 6, 2016 (WAFA) – The Israeli Municipality of West Jerusalem Wednesday forced a Palestinian family to demolish two rooms in its house located in Beit Hannina, to the north of Jerusalem under the pretext of unlicensed construction.
Shereen Sidawi, the house owner told WAFA a large Israeli force accompanying municipal staff raided the house to execute the demolition order, which was delivered to the family on Tuesday.
The notice stipulated the demolition of two rooms, a wooden and an aluminum room. The family dismantled the wooden room on Tuesday and self-demolished the aluminum room to avoid high fees required by the municipality for the demolition.
According to the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD), in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, demolitions are a major cause of the destruction of property, including residential and livelihood-related structures, and displacement.
It said, “The Palestinian population in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including occupied and illegally annexed East Jerusalem, continues to endure violence, displacement, dispossession and deprivation as a result of prolonged Israeli occupation, in most cases in violation of their rights under international law.”
ICAHD estimates that some 48,038 Palestinian structures have been demolished in the Occupied Palestinian Territory since 1967, based on information collected from the Israeli Ministry of Interior, the Jerusalem Municipality, the Civil Administration, UN bodies and agencies, Palestinian, Israeli and international human rights groups, our field monitoring, and other sources.
A report issued by the national office for the defense of land and resistance of settlement revealed that the number of Palestinians’ homes razed by Israeli occupation forces jumped to two times since the beginning of 2016 in comparison to 2015.
The office, which is affiliated with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), said Israel pursues the policy of house demolition as a collective punishment against the families of Palestinians who choose to fight Israeli occupation or for pretexts such as construction without permission.
The report quoted the Coordinator for Humanitarian and United Nations Development Activities for the occupied Palestinian territory, Robert Piper, as saying that Israel gives construction permits to 1.5% of the applications made by Palestinians.
M.H
