In the early hours of Monday, 22/07/2019, the Israeli court of justice issued a “Notice of Intent to Demolish” to residents of tens of buildings in Wadi Al-Humus neighborhood part of Sur Bahir town, The Judgment capped a court battle continued for years .

Hundreds of troops accompanied by heavy machineries raided the area and declared it a closed military zone, before they stormed homes, attacked residents and forced them to evict their homes using tear gas pumps.

The occupation forces banned reporters and human rights activist from approaching the location and covering the crime that the occupation is carrying against Palestinian civilians.

After they forced their control over the area, the occupation’s machineries carried out demolishing the buildings. At the same time, bombing experts were planting explosives all over a building of a 40 apartments, The process took about 12 hours , in 7:00 pm they exploded the building jumping of happiness and hugging each other as if they won a video game, on the other hand , residents of the building were lamenting their loss.

Lawyer Haitham Al-Khatib from the Society of St. Yves, the responsible on Wadi Al-Humus case told LRC reporter:

“The case goes back to 2003 after the construction and expansion of the Annexation wall, the wall was going to isolate the neighborhood from the village. Noteworthy the area is classified “A” according to Oslo accords , residents filed an objection, and the wall plan was modified to prevent isolating Wadi Al-Humus neighborhood.

However, in 2011, the area’s Army commander issued an order that prohibits construction on about 250 meters on both sides of the wall for “security” claims. The commander claims that ( Terrorists -meaning Palestinians- sneak to Israel through the wall). Noteworthy, the wall is actually a security fence and not a cement wall. The Judgment was released in 2011, but implemented is 2016, and number of buildings received demolition orders.”

The great majority of the  targeted buildings are located in A and B areas in the West Bank.  where, according to the Oslo Accords, all civil issues are under the jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority.

Then following table shows more information about the demolished buildings and their owners :

Source: First hand field observation- Israeli violations monitoring section – LRC, July 2019

The mass demolition of Wadi Al-Humus creates the most flagrant Israeli violation against the Palestinian right of housing . Israeli violated the Palestinian rights since it occupied Jerusalem in the 1967, when the occupation destroyed Ash-Sharaf neighborhood close to Al-Mughyrabi Gate, the neighborhood was completely erased, then turned into the wailing wall  Square “a holy site in the Jewish religion”.

The Israeli occupation will keep ignoring International conventions and agreement on human rights, which are worthless as long as they are just words on paper.

Sur Baher village:

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 town as the following :

A area (764) dunums.

B area (134) dunums.

C area (5,995) dunums.