Mohammed Mar'i Saudi Gazette RAMALLAH – A Palestinian resident demolished his home in occupied Jerusalem by himself on Sunday to avoid paying the expensive demolition fees. Palestinian sources said that Samer Za'tarah demolished his home in Jerusalem's Old City after he received a demolition notice from the municipality to avoid paying 90,000 Israeli shekel (roughly $26,000). The sources said that Za'tarah's home is located in the Aqabat al-Saraya area which overlooks the Al-Aqsa Mosque Complex. The sources said that “Israeli targets the Palestinian homes in this area to intensify the Jewish settlement activity in the area.” Amireh said that the coast of demolishing the home and removing the debris reached 12,000 shekel ($3,400). He added that an Israeli court decided to demolish the home after several petitions. The Jewish-dominated Jerusalem municipality said in its demolition warrant that the structure, home to six residents, was “illegally built” eighteen years ago. Some East Jerusalemites start since 2000 to carry out the demolitions themselves to avoid paying exorbitant fines for the homes build without licenses from Israeli authorities, fearful they could become mired in debt.
On last week, the Jerusalem municipality handed demolition orders to hundreds of Palestinian families living in 11 buildings in the neighborhoods of Ras Khamis and Ras Shihadeh “due to illegal construction.” The municipality called on the property owners to “regulate their affairs.” The notices stated that if no appeal was filed within 30 days, the court would accept the municipality's request to destroy the residences. The policy of house demolitions and settlement building in East Jerusalem is being used by the Israeli authorities and Jewish-dominated Jerusalem municipality to increase Jewish presence and manipulate the composition of the population in order to gain more control over the city prior to final status talks with the Palestinian Authority. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said recently that at least 93,100 Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem are under the threat of displacement due to the Israeli house demolition policy. OCHA said in a new report that the residents are living in structures built without permits from the Jerusalem municipality. It added that the municipality demolished 42 Palestinian structures in the disputed city. The UN body said several other structures were self-demolished. It added that only 13 percent of East Jerusalem is zoned for Palestinian construction, much of which is already built up, compared with 35 percent which has been expropriated and zoned for the use of Jewish settlers. Ahmed al-Rowaidhi, the chief of Al-Quds Unit at the Palestinian Presidency, said that 20,000 homes in several parts of the city are under the threat of demolition. Al-Rowaidhi added that the Palestinians build the homes without permits “due to the laws and regulation imposed on Jerusalemites by the Israeli authorities and the lack of building plans in several Arab neighborhoods.” The Palestinian official said the municipality “uses the statute 212 of the Israeli Laws of Building and Planning against the citizens.” He added that the same statute was in the demolition of al-Sharaf and al-Magharebah neighborhoods in 1968 and other demolitions in 1998 and 2005. Israel captured East Jerusalem in the June 1967 War, annexed it in 1980, and has since built settlements there that are home to some 300,000 Jewish settlers. Control over the city has been seen as the most sensitive and thorniest issue of Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Palestinians hope to make East Jerusalem the capital of their future state but the Israel says the city is its eternal capital.
