Land Research Center

Wednesday, October 17, the occupation's bulldozer destroyed a house in Jabal Mukabbir, claiming that it was built before getting proper permits from the occupation's municipality in Jerusalem, members from the Israeli occupation police besieged the place before carrying out the demolition.

The targeted house belong to citizen Khaleel Za'atra, he lives in it with his 8 members family , 4 of them are children, the house is reported to be constructed of strengthened plastic it is a one floor apartment (100 m²), and consists of 2 bed rooms, kitchen , bathroom and a living room.

Affected citizen Khaleel Dabash told LRC observer:

"The house was built in June 2018, in order to move to it with my family, after finishing the construction I moved immediately, few days later, members of the Israeli occupation municipality showed up and delivered a demolition military order on the pretext of building without permission."

The occupation municipality rarely grants permissions for Palestinians in the area, on the pretext that it needs organization projects which require a lot of money.

In the morning hours of the mentioned day, members of the Israeli occupation police along with military vehicles showed up , besieged the area and violently forced Az-Za'atreh family out of the house, without allowing them to carry any of their properties. The municipality's workers took out some of the furniture before they completely destroyed the house, The family lost thousands of shekels.

About Jabal Al Mukabbir [1]:

5 kilometers south Jerusalem city , Jabal Al Mukabbir is surrounded by Silwan (north, Ath Thuri (west) , Abu Dis and As-Sawahra Ash- Sharqiya (east) , As-Sawahra Al-Gharbiya (south).

Jabal Mukabbir and As-Sawahra Al-Gharbiya together have a total population of (21, 127 ) people in 2012 census-The  Jerusalem academy of Israeli Studies-, Jabal Al Mukabbir has an area of 3,281 dunums , 682,7 of them are the towns built uo area.

• Israeli settlements devoured 300 dunums of the town's lands:

Land Research Center LRC sees that demolitions contradict with all of the International conventions and Humanitarian laws including:

• Article 147 of Geneva fourth convention  : extensive destruction and appropriation of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly. ( it is considered a serious violation of the convention).
• Article 53 of Geneva fourth convention that forbids destroying properties : Any destruction by the Occupying Power of real or personal property belonging individually or collectively to private persons, or to the State, or to other public authorities, or to social or co-operative organizations, is prohibited, except where such destruction is rendered absolutely necessary by military operations.
• Article 33 of Geneva fourth convention: No protected person may be punished for an offence he or she has not personally committed.
• Article 32 of Hague convention 1907 part g: To destroy or seize the enemy's property, unless such destruction or seizure be imperatively demanded by the necessities of war.
• Article 17 of Universal declaration of human rights 10 –Dec- 1948:  No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.

[1] GIS-LRC

This case study is part of Kan'aan Project