On Wednesday, Israeli soldiers invaded an apartment building in the Wad Qaddoum neighborhood in Silwan town, south of the Al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied Jerusalem, and measured an apartment building in preparation for demolishing it.
The soldiers, accompanied by personnel of the City Council in occupied Jerusalem, invaded the building before surveying it and taking measurements to determine the demolition method.
The City Council issued the demolition order just a week earlier, and the army is now preparing to demolish it without granting the Palestinians sufficient time to file appeals.
The building has twelve apartments inhabited by dozens of Palestinians, including children, elders, and people with special needs.
Eyad Abu Sbeih, a resident of one of the apartments in the building, said he lives there with his six children.
Abu Sbeih said that, just two years ago, the Israeli army demolished his home in the Ein al-Louza neighborhood in Silwan, allegedly for being built without a City Council permit, despite all applications, appeals, and hefty fees.
“Since the year 2004, the families in the building have been trying to obtain permits and paid excessive fines and fees amounting to about 900.000 Shekels. However, the City Council denied our applications,” he added, “Now, the army will demolish the building and displace our families at any given moment, especially due to the so-called Kaminitz Law allowing the destruction of Palestinian property without a court ruling.”
The so-called Kaminitz Law, amendment 116, was signed in 2017 to expand the Israeli government’s authority on “preventing illegal constructions.”
However, Israel’s former Justice Minister, Ayelet Shaked of the New Right party, openly said at the time that the “law was meant to be applied on the Arab [Palestinian] sector,” which means it doesn’t apply to illegal Israeli colonialist outposts and other illegal constructions of Jewish colonizers on Palestinian lands.
Responding to Shaked’s statement, Member of Knesset Dr. Ahmad Tibi of the Joint List said, “when there is a law for some, and another discriminatory law for others, it is called apartheid.”
On its webpage, The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) said that, in the year 2021, the Israeli authorities demolished 937 structures, displacing 1119 Palestinians in the occupied territory (West Bank including East Jerusalem) and affecting 12.658 Palestinians.
In 2021, ICAHD analysis revealed that 937 structures were demolished and 1,119 people were displaced in the OPT, with 12,658 people directly affected. Three thousand four structures were demolished in the Negev/Naqab – 431 homes and 2553 agriculture and livelihood structures. View Maps Here
ICAHD also said, “More than 131,000 Palestinian homes have been demolished in Israel and the Occupied Palestine Territory (OPT) since 1947.”
