OCCUPIED JERUSALEM (PIC)– Palestinian sources reported that the Israeli controlled municipality of occupied Jerusalem handed Thursday demolition orders for 36 Palestinian families living in the Abbasiya neighborhood near the Old City.
The sources said that the orders gave the families who live in two buildings in this neighborhood 10 days to evacuate their homes.
According to the sources the number of Palestinian homes threatened with demolition in different Jerusalem neighborhoods rose to 124 so far.
Last week Israel issued demolition orders for 88 homes in Al-Bustan neighborhood located south of the Aqsa Mosque in occupied Jerusalem.
New reports received Saturday said that the Palestinians in the Sahel area near Jerusalem’s Old City set up a protest camp on the ruins of the last house that was demolished two weeks ago in the area. The camp was set up to protest against Israeli decisions to demolish 13 apartment buildings and the confiscation of 16 dunums of lands owned by Palestinians in the same area
The Israeli ocucpation authority gave the Palestinian owners of homes and lands 40 days to comply with the demolition orders.
As a result of these demolition orders which contravene international law thousands of Palestinians will become homeless. There are also fears that more demolition orders will be issued soon at the pretext of unlicensed construction.
Meanwhile the Palestinian center for human rights said in its weekly report that the Israeli occupation forces carried out at least 31 incursions in most of West Bank cities towns and refugee camps during which it kidnapped 31 Palestinian citizens including four children and transformed three Palestinian houses into military posts.
In the West Bank on February 26 a Palestinian child was killed and two of his friends were injured by the explosion of a suspicious object left by IOF in the Yarza area to the east of Tayaseer village east of Tubas where the IOF troops routinely conduct military drills using live ammunition the report added
On March fourth a Palestinian child was seriously injured by a gunshot to the head when IOF soldiers moved into Beit Ummar village north of Al-Khalil and fired at a number of children who demonstrated against them.
In the Gaza Strip the report pointed out that Israel continues to impose its deadly siege on the Palestinian people there and still blocks the entry of fuel supplies food medicines and other vital needs which paralyzed all walks of life in the Strip.
On February 27 medical sources at al-Zaytoun Hospital in Egypt confirmed that Nihad Mohammed Abu Kmail 29 from al-Mughraqa village south of Gaza City died of injuries he had sustained on 13 January 2009. According to the report the victim had been traveling in a truck on the coastal road leading to Gaza City when IOF troops positioned to the south of the city fired at the truck. As a result Abu Kmail was wounded by a gunshot to the head.
On March fourth the IOF troops extrajudicially executed a military activist of the Quds Brigades the armed wing of Islamic Jihad and injured a second activist as well as two civilian bystanders in the Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza.
The IOF troops have continued to impose severe restrictions on the movement of Palestinian civilians throughout the West Bank including occupied east Jerusalem. Thousands of Palestinian civilians from the West Bank and Gaza continue to be denied access to occupied Jerusalem.
The IOA continues its measures aimed at creating a demographic Jewish majority in east Jerusalem the report underlined.
