The Israeli Knesset discussed on Wednesday demolishing orders which were issued against 246 houses in Al Teera Arab town within the Israeli boundaries. The deliberations were made after Sheikh Abbas Zakkour, from the Arab United Bloc, filed a proposal to discuss this issue at the Knesset session.At the end of the session, the Knesset approved transferring the case for discussion at the Internal Parliamentarian Committee.
In his speech in front of the Knesset, MK Zakkour slammed the Israeli policies of demolishing Arab homes and said that the consecutive governments carried these violations without aver attempting to discuss and explore that real issues that force the residents to build their homes without obtaining a construction permits.
He added that the residents pay every penny they have and go into debt to build those homes, while the bureaucracy of the state and its development committee do to respond to frequent request by local councils of Arab villages to expand their boundaries in order to enable new couples to build their homes.
“The consecutive Israeli governments always knew how to annex Arab lands”, Zakkour stated, “but it seems they don’t know how to expand the Arab towns”.
He added that young couples who own lands cannot build on them due to the ongoing rejections of the Ministry of Interior.
“The Ministry of Interior must find a solution to solve the issue of housing in the Arab towns”, Zakkour said, “The ongoing demolishing of Arab houses will only lead to violent confrontations which do not seek”.
Commenting on a statement by the Israeli Interior Minister regarding “his intentions to build an Arab town in the Galilee”, Zakkour said; “we always heard such statements in the past, but none of them ever came true, I suggest that the ministry should now expand the existing Arab towns instead of talking about new ones, especially since the existing towns are over populated and need urgent expansion”.
