Days of Palestine – Jerusalem
The Israeli occupation authorities on Friday evening forced a Palestinian man to self-demolish his family house in Beit Hanina, in Occupied Jerusalem.
The house’s owner Raif Al-Salaymeh said that he was threatened to pay a fine of 100,000 shekels if he did not demolish the house by himself.
Raif and his four-member family became homeless after he failed to obtain an Israeli construction permit over the past eight years.
Raif stressed that he would never forsake his land despite the Israeli systematic displacement policy against Jerusalemites.
Demolishing a house is not only destroying a physical structure, it is wiping out the memories of home that symbolize a person’s entire life, and sense of identity.
The Israeli occupation has been using home demolitions as a method of warfare since the Nakba, which built its existence on the destruction of at least 531 Palestinian towns and villages, the killing of some 15,000 Palestinians, and the forcible displacement of 750,000 to 900,000 refugees and internally displaced persons.
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