2020-08-31
Monday, August 31st 2020, The Occupation municipality in Jerusalem forced two citizens from Ar-Razim family to demolish their own houses, on the pretext of building without licenses.
The following table shows more information about the victims:
| name | Area / m2 | Family members | children |
1 | Abdul Salam Ar-Razim | 70 | 7 | 5 |
2 | Odai Ar-Razim | 70 | 3 | 1 |
Odai Ar-Razim told LRC the following:
“In 2011, my brother and I built two apartments; each one has a total area of (70 m2) and consists of two rooms, bathroom, kitchen, and a living room. After completing the construction works, we were summoned to court under the pretext of building without licenses, the court imposed a high fine (about 12,000 $).
We tried to save the building – Legally- and stop the demolition order, but early August 2020 and after 9 years, the occupation municipality issued a demolition order against the building. According to the notice, they gave us a period to carry out the demolition, and in case we breached the deadline, the occupation municipality will carry out the operation and make us pay all the costs.”
Demolishing our own houses is very difficult, but if the occupation authorities carried out the demolition, they will bring bulldozers to terrorize us and our children, and then make us pay all the demolition costs, so we decided to carry out the demolition ourselves.
About Beit Hanina:[1]
5 km north Jerusalem, Beit Hanina is surrounded by Bir Nabala (north), Beit Hanina down town (Bait Hanina town was divided to two parts by the Apartheid wall Upper Beit Hanaina and Beit Hanina down town) (west), Hizma (east) and Shufat (south). Beit Hanina has a population of 33,617 people in 2009, and an area of (8,877) , (3,341) dunums are a built up area.
The occupation confiscated over 3700 dunums for the following purposes:
Illegal colonies confiscated (3064) dunums as follows:
colony | Establishing year | Area of confiscated lands/ dunums | Number of settlers |
Neve Yaacov | 1972 | 575,5 | 20,250 |
Pisgat Amir | 1985 | 684 | unavailable |
Pisgat Zeev | 1985 | 1,458 | 38, 684 |
Ramat Shlomo | 1990 | 346 | 12,822 |
Bypass roads (50 +60) confiscated over 482 dunums.
Apartheid wall took over 50 dunums and has a length of (987) meters.
Occupation's military camps took over (103) 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