Israel demolishes buildings in Jerusalem, 800,000 to lose homes
Israeli forces began demolishing buildings near a military barrier on the outskirts of Jerusalem on Monday, in the face of Palestinian protests and international criticism.
Bulldozers
accompanied by hundreds of Israeli soldiers and police moved in to Sur
Baher, a Palestinian village on the edge of East Jerusalem in an area
that Israel captured and occupied in the 1967 Middle East War.
Palestinians fear that the razing of homes and buildings near the fence
will set a precedent for other towns along the route of the barrier,
which runs for hundreds of kilometers around and through the
Israeli-occupied West Bank. The demolition is the latest round of
protracted wrangling over the future of Jerusalem, home to more than
500,000 Israelis and 300,000 Palestinians, and sites sacred to Judaism,
Islam and Christianity. Israeli forces cut through a wire section of the
barrier in Sur Baher under cover of darkness early on Monday, and began
clearing residents from the area. Floodlights lit up the area as dozens
of vehicles brought helmeted security forces into the village. After
first light, mechanical diggers began destroying a two-storey house as
soldiers moved through several floors of a partly constructed
multi-storey building nearby. Since 2 a.m. they have been evacuating
people from their homes by force and they have started planting
explosives in the homes they want to destroy,” said Hamada Hamada, a
community leader in Sur Baher.
The work was filmed and
photographed by Palestinian, Israeli and international activists who had
mobilized to try and stop the demolition. Israel’s Supreme Court ruled
in June that the structures violated a construction ban. The deadline
for residents to remove the affected buildings, or parts of them,
expired on Friday. Some Sur Baher residents said they would be made
homeless. Owners said they had obtained permission to build from the
Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited self-rule in the
Israeli-occupied West Bank.