Land Research Center

The citizen, Faraj Aziz Dabash, a resident of Sur Baher, demolished his house in the afternoon of the fourteenth of May 2022, and the house is in the school suburb, by orders from the occupation municipality to oblige him to demolish his house on the pretext of not having a license, and by threatening him if he did not do the demolition, the municipality crews will storm the place and will do the demotion, and if so, he will be fined large sums of money and the costs of the operation amounted to 100,000 shekels, about 35,000 US dollars.

It is noteworthy that the house has an area of about 70 square meters, on the second floor, and includes three rooms, a kitchen and two bathrooms. It is inhabited by the family consisting of the father, mother and three children, including one daughter. It is noteworthy that the house was built in 2010 and at a construction cost of 200,000 shekels, or about 70,000 US dollars, in addition to the amount of fines that were paid, which amounted to about 35,000 shekels, about 11,000 dollars.

The owner of the house mentioned that it is not the first time that their house has been demolished. In the past years, the municipality has demolished houses that he built twice, and this time is the third time, and each time the owner is forced to rent in order to preserve the family’s unity and provide them with a comfortable place to live, As for the father of the owner of the house, he expressed his great sadness, because this time his son’s house is not close to his own, and he used to see his grandchildren, play and eat together, and that once the house was demolished, they had to find another place, which causes the family to disintegrate and deprive the grandfather of his grandchildren.

Sur Baher village, one of the Palestinian villages located to the southeast of the city of Jerusalem, on the northern borders of the city of Bethlehem. It is bordered by the villages of Abu al-Hummus, Um Tuba and al-Mukabber, while the settlement of Har Homa (Abu Ghneim) borders it from the south, and the American street crosses it from the east, in addition to many ongoing demolitions, the town’s lands are threatened by many Judaization projects that aim to tighten the noose around the residents and force many of them to leave the place and abandon, including what was announced in 2021 about the expansion of Har Homa settlement to the south.