RAMALLAH, January 5, 2017 (WAFA) –One third of the Palestinian homes in occupied East Jerusalem are threatened with demolition by the Israeli municipality under the pretext they were built without a permit, Jerusalem governor, Adnan Husseini, told Voice of Palestine radio on Thursday.

He said most of the targeted homes are located in areas around the Old City, such as Silwan, he said.

Husseini said Palestinians build without permit not because they want to, but because the Israeli municipality does not grant them permits to build in order to lower the number of Palestinians in the city vis-a-vis Jewish settlers.

In contrast, Israel had built since its occupation of the city in 1967 thousands of homes for Jewish settlers in and around East Jerusalem and mainly on land seized from the Palestinians or should have been utilized for Palestinian growth and expansion.

The United Nations Security Council adopted last month a resolution condemning Israeli settlement construction in the occupied Palestinian land, including in East Jerusalem, and described them as illegitimate and illegal under international law.

Husseini, who is also Minister of Jerusalem Affairs in the Palestinian government, called on the international community to intervene to prevent Israel from carrying out its threat, which could displace and uproot thousands of Palestinian civilians living in those areas in order to replace them with Jewish settlers.

K.T./M.K.