Israeli municipal crews, accompanied by Israeli occupation soldiers, demolished, Wednesday, two Palestinian homes belonging to the Burqan family in the Wadi Qaddum area of Silwan, south of the Al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied Jerusalem.
Falah Ibrahim Burqan, one of the homeowners, said that Israeli forces surrounded the property without warning, forcibly evacuated the family, and immediately began razing the structures.
“They didn’t give us any notice,” Burqan told local reporters, “they just came in, pushed us out, and started tearing everything down.”
The bulldozers not only destroyed the homes but also dismantled the surrounding wall, uprooted fruit-bearing trees, and leveled the road leading to the property.
Burqan, who has lived in his home for over two decades, said he had been fined nearly 150,000 shekels by the Israeli municipality for alleged building violations.
He resided in a 110-square-meter house with his wife and seven children, ranging in age from 4 to 22. His son, Jihad Burqan, lives with his wife in a separate 70-square-meter home on the same plot.
The demolitions are part of a broader pattern of displacement in East Jerusalem, where Palestinian families face mounting pressure through fines, permit denials, and forced evictions. Rights groups have condemned such actions as violations of international law and tools of demographic engineering.
In Ramallah, in the central West Bank, the army demolished a coffee shop in Beit Liqya town, west of Ramallah, in the central West Bank.
On Tuesday, Israeli occupation forces demolished an under-construction school in Tubas and a residential home in Bethlehem, both located in the occupied West Bank. The army also forced a family out of their home near Jerusalem, in preparation for demolishing the property, and demolished water wells and a spring near Hebron.
Israeli occupation forces demolished four structures in the town of Al-Judeira, north of occupied Jerusalem in the West Bank, on Monday, citing lack of construction permits, in addition to delivering demolition orders for three residential buildings in Qalandia, northwest of Jerusalem.
