Tuesday, October 27^th 2020, the Israeli Occupation forces demolished a house in Sur Baher south Jerusalem, on the pretext of building without licenses from the occupation.

The targeted structure belongs to Mohammed Turshan and it consists of two floors, the first one is a flower store, while the second floor is a residential apartment that was supposed to be home for a family of 5, 3 of them are children.

The family received a demolition order in April 2020, on which the occupation authorities set October 2020 as the date for the self-demolition. Adalah center submitted a petition to the occupation authorities hoping to protect the center, but the occupation municipality showed up and carried out the demolition.

The house was built on two phases, the first part was built in 1999 , it contains a Berber shop , and an apartment used as a classroom for blind children.

Demolition cases increased after The Occupation Authorities eased lockdown measures. Recently, the occupation forces raided Sur Baher and Shufat and carried out several demolitions around As-Salam and Al-Awqaf neighbourhoods.

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] GIS-LRC

Protecting marginalized communities in Jerusalem through legal support and advocacy

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