A Scheme for demolishing 150 Palestinian homes

The Jerusalem Centre for Social and Economic Rights has warned of a scheme by the Occupation’s Municipality of Jerusalem for the imminent demolition of about 150 homes in various parts of the city. The immediate demolition order has been issued by the former mayor Uri Lupolianski, and the current mayor, Nir Barkat.

According to a report by the Research and Documentation Unit of the Jerusalem Centre, “Most of these houses are located in the northern districts of the city, especially Beit Hanina, Shu’fat, Ashqaria, and the Nusseibeh project; as well as in the southern suburbs of the city, particularly Silwan, Thory, Mount Scopus and Sur Baher, and in neighborhoods and towns Tur, Zaeem, Issawiya, and Ras Khamis, to the east of the city.”

The report, a copy of which was received today by the Quds Press, has revealed,
“There are more than a thousand people living in these homes, and most of them were built more than three years. These houses threatened to be demolished do not include the 125 houses and apartments that had been ordered to be demolished in the districts of Al-Bustan, Abbasiya, and Ein El Helwa.”

The report also pointed out that the demolitions carried out on Monday in the neighborhoods of Beit Hanina, Ashqaria and Marwaha are part of a series of demolitions that the municipality will be executing till the end of this year on the 150 houses for which orders of immediate demolition were issued, which was affirmed by sources in the Israeli Municipality of the Holy City.

Israeli bulldozers demolished a house yesterday in Marwaha with an area of 70 square meters. It belonged to the citizen Amjad Turiaqy and it housed a family of 5 members.

Israeli bulldozers also destroyed a 110-meter-long wall of a house under construction in Ashqaria, belonging to citizen Sami El-Razem, as well as a tin-and-bricks bowery near Al-Razem’s house; then it turned to the house of Majed Abu Aisha in Beit Hansna, in Tale’t Hizma, and demolished part of it before the owner obtained – from an Israeli court – an interim decree against the demolition of the property, especially considering that the house was built since 2003.

With yesterday’s demolitions, the number of houses demolished by the Israeli municipality since the beginning of the year has reached 61, apart from agricultural and industrial installations, in addition to 18 houses demolished by their owners, with tens of other houses, mostly within the walls of Jerusalem’s Old City, threatened to be demolished by their owners.

The report revealed that the Israeli Custodian of Absentee Property controls 200 houses within the Old City’s walls, mostly managed by a Jewish settlements association. Some of them were turned into synagogues, in addition to an unspecified number of houses in the neighborhoods of Sheikh Jarrah, Silan, and Jabal Al-Zeitoun.

The report explained that this number of houses do not include settlement areas run by the radical associations in the Old City and Silwan. The Elad foundation oversees 70 settlement areas, and it runs about 40 settlement areas in Silwan and Ras Amoud.