Israeli occupation authorities (IOA) have forced a Palestinian family to demolish two homes in Jerusalem on Monday raising the number of the demolished homes in the holy city since the morning hours to four.
The Obaid family was forced to self-demolish their two houses in Al-Isawiya town east of Occupied Jerusalem to avoid the Israeli heavy demolition fines.
Family sources affirmed that the two houses were being built five months ago on an area of 200 square meters at a total cost of $100000.
However an Israeli order has forced the family to stop the construction of the two homes till their demolition on Monday.
This came only a few hours after the IOA forced two Palestinian brothers to demolish their two homes in the east Jerusalem neighborhood of Jabel Mukaber.
The two brothers were left homeless along with their eight children although they were forced to pay 100000 shekels (about $32000) as building fines.
Also on Monday the Israeli authorities ordered Salem family to vacate their house in Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood east of Occupied Jerusalem.
After Israeli settler NGOs lodged a claim to the property an Israeli court ruled that the family of 11 including four children in the Palestinian neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah had to be forcibly expelled by April 2022.
Living in fear and apprehension the Salem family has been awaiting imminent forced displacement from the house they have lived in since 1951 – currently home to three generations.
Local NGOs and rights groups have long pointed to a range of Israeli practices and policies in Jerusalem aimed at altering the demographic ratio in favor of Jews a goal laid out as “maintaining a solid Jewish majority in the city”.
Unlawful settlement expansion Palestinian home demolitions and restrictions on urban development are some of the main ways being used to realize this goal according to rights groups.
East Jerusalem is illegally occupied under international law. The “extensive destruction and appropriation of property not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly” amounts to a grave breach of the 1949 Geneva Conventions and is considered a war crime according to the 1998 Rome Statute of the ICC.
