Tuesday, Dec 1^st 2020 citizen Ayham Al-Khateeb was forced to demolish his own house, after receiving a notice from the Occupation’s municipality on the pretext of building without a license.

The house is located in Sour Baher south the city , it is composed of two rooms with a total area of 45 m² built as a new part of an old home to provide more space for the family (4 member , 2 of them are children).

The Occupation municipality gave Ayham a demolition notice last September. Ayham found himself forced to demolish his own home.

The Occupation’s Municipality in Jerusalem targets Palestinian construction in Jerusalem using the pretext of Security. Jerusalemites need thousands of new residential units , while Israel won’t allow them to build any , and demolish what is built without a license (which is almost impossible to get) . On the other hand, Israeli illegal Colonists expand rapidly illegally in Jerusalem and the West Bank, But the Law was only made to be used against Palestinians.

During the last ten years, LRC documented 246 self-demolition cases , the owners had to demolish their own houses to avoid paying the expensive costs in case the Occupation authorities carried out the demolition , as a result of this brutal policy , 1332 people lost their homes (670 are underage).

The graph illustrates self-demolition cases between (2010 - 20/9/2020)

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 town 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