The Jerusalemite from Sur Baher Ibrahim Abu Kaf proceeded to self-demolish his house after the municipality’s staff stormed the place and notified the family of the house demolition with a deadline not exceeding 10 days. The pretext of the citizen's refusal to do so and a fine of 150 thousand shekels.

The Jerusalemite family consisting of 8 members of a family that includes the father, mother and sons, in addition to the family of his son and wife, who have been living in the same house for about 10 years with an area of 100 square meters in the area southeast of the village of Sur Baher, was forced to demolish its house during evening hours and under the observation of the police and municipal staff for the place.

Ibrahim Abu Kaf stated that he self-demolished as soon as possible, fearing that the municipality would storm the place and carry out the demolition, and then fine the citizen with the demolition sums of 150,000 shekels.

Regarding the current situation, the family has distributed the house’s furniture in various stores around the place, which are prone to breakage, in addition to the whole family’s move to live in the house of the father of the citizen Ibrahim, and he expressed the difficulty of the situation and the inability to find a place to rent, as well as the high rent prices, and he needs two apartments, one for him and his family and the second for his son and his family

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. 

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