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The Israeli occupation authorities force two brothers to demolish their homes in Silwan/ Jerusalem
Tuesday , 18 June 2019, Brothers Basil and Hatim Al-‘Abasi demolished their own building (which consists of an apartment for each), on the pretext of building without obtaining licenses from the occupation’s municipality.
Hatim Al-‘Abasi told LRC reporter:
“The building consists of 2 floors , each one contains an apartment (120 m2) , it was built at the beginning of January 2019.
Two weeks ago, we received a demolition order on the pretext of building without licenses. As the military order said, We the owners must demolish our property before a certain date, in case we breached the deadline, the occupation’s municipality will implement the operation and make us pay for the costs (about 80,000 shekels).
In order to reduce the losses, we decided to demolish the building in our own hands, we lost hundreds thousand of shekels in a blink of an eye.”
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Self demolition causes great pain and feelings of oppression, when the fathers carries out the demolition, children become confused and view their caretaker as weak and helpless. This may lead to fragmentations, clashes and instability within the family, and children might suffer psychologically and lose trust in the family, society and future.
Self-Demolition is a Crime against Humanity:
The Israeli policies in forcing Jerusalemites to demolish their own home is increasing quickly, due to the Jerusalemites poor economical circumstances, Once they receive a military order they run to destroy their own homes to avoid the high fines.
LRC field observers kept a close eye on the matter and recorded 137 cases where the owners had to demolish their property by themselves between 2010-2018 .
The following table provides numbers of houses demolished by their owners in occupied Jerusalem (2010-2018):
| Number of houses | Area m2 | Family members | children |
2018 | 20 | 1976 | 125 | 65 |
2017 | 17 | 1325 | 90 | 55 |
2016 | 28 | 1999 | 125 | 56 |
2015 | 6 | 380 | 31 | 14 |
2014 | 11 | 605 | 88 | 31 |
2013 | 13 | 822 | 107 | 64 |
2012 | 14 | 984 | 92 | 53 |
2011 | 15 | 700 | 88 | 56 |
2010 | 13 | 827 | 102 | 61 |
total | 137 | 9618 | 848 | 455 |
Source: Firsthand field observation- Israeli violations monitoring section- LRC , January 2019.
The Bar graph shows number of self-demolished houses in east Jerusalem according to years
1 Km south Jerusalem, Silwan is surrounded by Jerusalem city (north & east), the green line “The occupied territories” (west) , Ath-Thori and Jabal Al-Mukabir (south).
Silwan has an area of 1,400 dunums, 855 of them are the town’s built up area.
[1] GIS-LRC