Land Research Center

On Tuesday of October 27, 2020, dozers of Israel's Occupation Municipality raided Shu'fat town of Occupied Jerusalem and demolished a residence and an agricultural structure on the claim of "unlicensed construction". At time of the raid, the occupation forces fired rubber-coated bullets and stun grenades at people gathering at the scene.

The demolished two-story residence (800 m²) is reported to be owned by citizen Ashraf Hammoud. Construction on the house started a year ago; it was served a stop-work notice at the time. Not only, a demolition notice followed with a deadline until October 29, 2020. Shockingly, the force arrived two days earlier to the deadline and brought the structure down.

Noteworthy, the force moved on and demolished another room in Al-Salam neighborhood at Shu'fat town on the claim of "unlicensed construction".

Shu’fat Refugees’^[1]:

4 kilometers north east Jerusalem, Shu’fat is surrounded by “Pizgat Amir” settlement built over confiscated lands (north), Shu’fat town (west) ,Anattah( east) and Isawiya (south). Shu’fat refugees’ camp has a population of (60000) people in 2016.

Shu’fat town including the refugees’ camp have together an area of 8494 dunums, of which 2033 dunums are a built-up planned area.

The occupation devoured from Shu’fat town and its refugees’ camp (8591) dunums for the following purposes:

Settlements devoured (3781) dunums for the following:

2. Bypass 60 devoured 8 dunums.

3- The Apartheid wall devoured of 4802 donums and isolated 1013 donums behind it –about 4021 meters long-.

Legal Commentary:

The demolition of Palestinian homes and installations by the occupation authorities is part of their violations of international and humanitarian law, and the violation of the right to adequate housing for Palestinian citizens guaranteed by international law and international treaties presented by the following articles:

Article 147 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which states that “Destruction and usurpation of property in a manner not justified by military necessity and on a large scale in an unlawful and arbitrary manner is a grave breaches of the convention.

Article 53 of the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1948 prohibits the destruction of property, as this article states the following: “The occupying power is prohibited from destroying any private, fixed or movable property related to individuals or groups, the state or public authorities, or social or cooperative organizations, unless the war operations inevitably require this destruction.

Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention states: “No protected person may be punished for an offense he or she has not personally committed.

Paragraph ‘g’ of Article 23 of the Hague Convention of 1907 AD also warned against destroying or seizing the enemy’s property, unless the necessities of war necessarily require such destruction or seizure.

Article 17 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, dated December 10, 1948 states that “No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property”.

[1] GIS -LRC.

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This report was prepared with EU funding, the contents of this document do not reflect positions of the European Union