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The Occupation Municipality forces three families to demolish their houses in Beit Hanina / Occupied Jerusalem
Sunday October 4th 2020, the occupation authorities forced owners of three residences to demolish the building they have been living at for 20 years, The targeted building is located in Khallet Sanad in Beit Hanina / North Occupied Jerusalem.
The following table shows more information about the owners and the targeted structures:
# | Affected citizen | Area of the building | members | Children |
1 | Salah Burqan | 128 | 2 | -- |
2 | Yacoub Burqan | 7 | 5 | |
3 | Fawwaz Burqan | 5 | 3 |
Burqan family told LRC the following:
“In 2000, I built a house with a total area of 128 m2 , the house consists of a living room , three bed rooms , two bathrooms and a kitchen. The house was later divided into two parts for my sons Yacoub and Fawwaz , in order to give them studio apartments to live at after getting married.
After dividing the building, the Occupation municipality showed up and took pictures of the building then withdrew. Burqan family were summoned to court, and fined 65,000 NIS on the pretext of building without licenses.”
Eventually, the occupation court decided to force the owners to demolish their residences, or otherwise the occupation authorities will carry out the demolition and make them pay the costs of the bulldozers and workers.
Sunday , Burqan family carried out the demolition.
It is difficult and almost impossible for Palestinians to get a construction license in Jerusalem , while renting an apartment would cost at least 800$ monthly, Palestinian Jerusalemites find themselves with the only solution of building without licenses. On the other hand, the occupation municipality is always watching , and eventually forces the owner to demolish their houses , this is the expensive cost of living in the holy city of Jerusalem.
About Beit Hanina:[1]
5 km north Jerusalem, Beit Hanina is surrounded by Bir Nabala (north), Beit Hanina down town (Bait Hanina town was divided to two parts by the Apartheid wall Upper Beit Hanaina and Beit Hanina down town) (west), Hizma (east) and Shufat (south). Beit Hanina has a population of 33,617 people in 2009, and an area of (8,877) , (3,341) dunums are a built up area.
The occupation confiscated over 3700 dunums for the following purposes:
• Illegal colonies confiscated (3064) dunums as follows:
colony | Establishing year | Area of confiscated lands/ dunums | Number of settlers |
Neve Yaacov | 1972 | 575,5 | 20,250 |
Pisgat Amir | 1985 | 684 | unavailable |
Pisgat Zeev | 1985 | 1,458 | 38, 684 |
Ramat Shlomo | 1990 | 346 | 12,822 |
• Bypass roads (50 +60) confiscated over 482 dunums.
• Apartheid wall took over 50 dunums and has a length of (987) meters.
• Occupation's military camps took over (103) dunums.
[1] GIS-LRC
Protecting marginalized communities in Jerusalem through legal support and advocacy
This report was prepared with EU funding, the contents of this document do not reflect positions of the European Union