Land Research Center

Monday, 10 June 2019, 'Amira family demolished their home on their own hands , after the occupation’s municipality served them a demolition military order, on the pretext of building without licenses in C area.

The targeted house belongs to “Mervat 'Amira” , who have been living in it with her 7 family members (4 of them are children), the house is built in 2014 of bricks and cement. In April 2019, the family received a demolition military order.

Mervat was called to stand before court , where the judge ordered the family to demolish their house, or the municipality will implement the operation and impose a high fine on them, about 70,000 NIS (as the expenses of the demolition) .

Mervat asserted: My husband died as a result of a terminal illness , I have been raising my kids alone, which is very hard, but the occupation’s municipality did not take that into account.

Self-Demolition is a Crime against Humanity:

Definition: When an owner of a structure is forced to demolish his property by himself, it is called 'self demolition' or 'silent demolition'. It used to be carried out in quiet or in silence as the name suggests. But recently, due to their increased number of cases, victims have come to disclose that such type of demolition exists and that it is their only choice and speak out about the inhumanity of the Israeli occupation for forcing such a practice.

This kind of demolition is mainly imposed on Palestinians in Jerusalem in efforts to displace them and Judaize the city.

The Israeli occupation always justifies that type of demolition, which is a blatant contravention of the right to residence and a crime against humanity, on the pretext of unlicensed construction.

LRC field observers kept a close eye on the matter and recorded 137 cases where the owners had to demolish their property by themselves during the past eight years making 1303 civilian citizens, more than half of whom are children, homeless and lacking security and stability.

The following table provides numbers of houses demolished by their owners in occupied Jerusalem (2010-2018):

Source: Firsthand field observation- Israeli violations monitoring section- LRC , January 2019.

Sur Baher village[1]:

3 km south Jerusalem city, Sur Baher is bordered by Al-Sawahira Al-Gharbiyya, Jabal Al-Mukabir and (Talpiot) settlement on confiscated lands (North), The Green Line and the occupied territories of 1948 , Ash-Shaikh Sa’ad village (east), and Beit Sahour ,Umm Tuba and Har Homa settlement (south).

Sur Baher and Um Tuba together have a population of 18,137 people in 2011 census “The Jerusalem Institute for Israeli studies 2012”.

The town’s population come from several families: Duyat, Dabesh, Nemr, Eleyan, Hamada, 'Amaira, Abu Kufur, Bukairat, Jbour, Jad Allah, Abu Jamid , Al Atrash.

Sur Baher has a total area of 6,894 dunums , of which 2,076 dunums are the town’s built up area, it is in the borders of the occupation’s municipality in Jerusalem, after they illegally annexed it in 1967.

The occupation confiscated (1517) dunums from Sur Baher for the following purposes:

Talpiot settlement, which was established in 1973 devoured 1291 dunums , and inhabited by 12,591 people.

The segregation wall (2,260 m long) devoured 226 dunums, and blocked 6,033 dunums (west) and 861 dunums (east).

Oslo conventions divided the land as the following :

• A area (764) dunums.

• B area (134) dunums.

• C area (5,995) dunums.

[1] Source: GIS - LRC.