Israeli bulldozers of the Jerusalem City Council demolished, on Tuesday morning, a Palestinian home in Sweij neighborhood, in Silwan, in occupied East Jerusalem, under the pretext that the home was built without a construction permit. Fakhri Abu Thiab of the Committee for the Defense of Silwan reported that the demolished home was still under construction, and was a three-story building overlooking at the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Old city of occupied Jerusalem.
Abu Thiab added that the timing of this act “is an indication of the cruelty and the ugly face of the occupation that does not have mercy”, especially amidst the current cold weather and the pouring rain.
“Israel has no mercy on the Palestinians in occupied Jerusalem”, he added, “It tries, at all costs, to displace the indigenous Palestinians from their city so that Israel can hand it to the settlers”.
According to data collected by the Israeli Committee Against Home Demolitions (ICAHD) and was published a few months ago, Israel’s demolition of Palestinian homes is a systematic policy that aims at forcing the Palestinians to leave Jerusalem in order to maintain Jewish majority.
ICHAD estimates that Israel demolished at least 24.145 homes in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip since 1967.
