Israeli occupation forces demolished Palestinian building in occupied East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Beit Hanina on Wednesday morning, the Palestinian news agency Wafa said.
Crews from the Jewish municipality of Jerusalem, accompanied by police escorts, raided the neighbourhood and destroyed the building under the pretext that it was built without a permit.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in the occupied Palestinian territory said on Twitter that a home demolition had been reported in Beit Hanina Wednesday morning.
On Tuesday, Israeli forces demolished two Palestinian homes in the East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Silwan, leaving a Palestinian family of nine members homeless.
Jerusalem municipality has claimed that compared to the Jewish population, Palestinians receive a disproportionately low number of permit applications from Palestinian communities, which also see high approval ratings.
For Jewish Israelis in occupied East Jerusalem’s illegal settlements, the planning, marketing, development and infrastructure are funded and executed by the Israeli government.
In contrast, in the Palestinian neighbourhoods, all the burden falls on individual families to contend with a lengthy permit application that can last several years and cost tens of thousands of dollars.
According to Daniel Seidemann of the NGO Terrestrial Jerusalem has revealed that the Israeli Jewish municipality of the city builds many housing units for Jews, but very few units from Arabs.
“Since 1967, the Government of Israel has directly engaged in the construction of 55,000 units for Israelis in East Jerusalem; in contrast, fewer than 600 units have been built for Palestinians in East Jerusalem, the last of which were built 40 years ago,” he said.
According to UN documentation, 202 Palestinians were displaced and 116 buildings have been demolished in East Jerusalem since the beginning of the year as of October 9.
Israeli demolitions of Palestinian homes in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem reached a record high in 2016.
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