The Israeli occupation authority (IOA) started at dawn Wednesday to demolish a number of commercial stores in the east Jerusalem town of Hizma.
According to local sources around 20 stores have been demolished by Israeli bulldozers so far near the Hizma military checkpoint at the main entrance to the town.
During the demolition campaign police forces blocked a section of the main road between the towns of Jaba and Hizma causing a heavy build-up of traffic.
Jerusalemite lawyer Medhat Daiba explained that the Israeli district court in Jerusalem rejected two months ago a petition filed by the extremist settler group Regavim calling for demolishing structures in Hizma town but the Israeli government ignored the court verdict and issued on Tuesday evening (August 3) a decision to raze the structures within eight hours.
Daiba added that the Israeli government took such step while knowing that courts are closed and judges are on judicial leave nowadays so it would be impossible for Palestinian owners to extract court orders freezing its measure.
“This confirms that the government and settler groups are two sides of the same coin and that each one of them is skilled at persecuting Palestinians” he said.
Founded in 2006 Regavim works diligently on the displacement of Palestinian communities living in the West Bank including Jerusalem in cooperation with the Israeli government.
Because the Israeli occupation army’s civil administration refuses to issue any building permits for Palestinians in the occupied territory these communities are often forced to build homes and structures without getting Israeli licenses.
Therefore Regavim was founded to send “field inspectors” to report about unlicensed Palestinian construction and then forward the gathered information to the occupation authority to demolish homes and property of the local residents across the West Bank.
