Pictures| ‘Israel’ forces Palestinian family to self-demolish room in its home in Jerusalem
Occupied Jerusalem (QNN)- Israeli occupation authorities on Saturday forced a Palestinian family to self-demolish a room in its own home in Wadi al-Joz neighborhood in Silwan in the occupied city of Jerusalem.
At the order of the Israeli occupation municipality, the family of Bazbazat self-demolished a room in its home in Wadi al-Joz to avoid paying a fine in exorbitant demolition costs to the Israeli municipality (the staff and the police) if it carries out the demolition.
The family said that they self-demolished the room despite the fact that they had been asked, since 2005, to pay around $33,000 in fines for the construction of the room to the Israeli municipality.
#شاهد الاحتلال يجبر عائلة بزبزت على هدم غرف سكنية لها في حي وادي الجوز بالقدس المحتلة pic.twitter.com/qKiE3yyjFG
— AlQastal القسطل (@AlQastalps) October 16, 2021
The room was built in the 1990s and in 2019, the occupation municipality issued a demolition order to the room.
Lately, the family self-demolished the roof of the room. However, on Saturday night, the occupation municipality staff and police raided their home and ordered the room to be completely demolished.
Using the pretext of illegal building, ‘Israel’ demolishes houses on a regular basis to restrict Palestinian expansion in occupied Jerusalem.
At the same time, the municipality and the occupation government built tens of thousands of housing units in illegal settlements in occupied East Jerusalem for Jews with a goal to offset the demographic balance in favour of the Israeli settlers in the occupied city.
‘Israel’ has been moving its citizens into the neighbourhood since the 1980s. This has resulted in numerous human rights violations, including the forced displacement of Palestinian residents.
Hundreds of Palestinian families are being threatened with displacement and house demolitions by illegal settler groups, fully supported by the Israeli government.
There are nearly 700,000 Israeli settlers living in 256 illegal settlements and outposts scattered across the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem. Israeli settlements are illegal under international law.
The Israeli court had previously rejected many appeals filed by the residents of Jerusalem, and allowed “Ateret Cohanim” to continue its procedures relevant to the immediate expelling of the Palestinian families.
Ateret Cohanim, a settler organization, has been seeking, with the support of Israeli occupation authorities, to forcibly evict some Palestinian families in Silwan, claiming the land is rightfully owned by a Jewish trust active in the area more than 100 years ago.
