Days of Palestine – Jerusalem
The nightmare of displacement haunts 100 Jerusalemites in the Wadi Qaddum neighborhood of Silwan, south of the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque after the Israeli occupation municipality warned them to vacate the residential building they live in in the neighborhood, in preparation for its demolition, under the pretext of building without a permit.
The residents of the building live in a state of great tension and anxiety, fearing that the occupation municipality will demolish it at any moment, and displace them in favor of establishing settlement projects.
A week ago, Jerusalemite families received eviction orders, in preparation for the demolition of the four-story building containing 12 apartments, housing about 100 Jerusalemites.
Arafat al-Annabi, a resident of the building said that we live with constant anxiety and fear; we couldn’t sleep or rest. We wait at any moment for the occupation’s bulldozers to demolish our homes and displace us in the open.”
He added that last week, we received notices from the occupation municipality to vacate the building, in preparation for its demolition, under the pretext of not having a permit, without giving us any deadline to carry out the demolition.
Since that time, we have been living on our nerves, we do not know where we will go, and we do not know our fate, he said.
Al Annabi has been living in his 120-square-meter house for eight years, with his family of eight, awaiting an unknown future, in light of the occupation’s insistence on the demolition.
He wonders heartily, “Where will we go, if our homes are demolished, we have no other shelter, this is an unjust decision, you cannot imagine how you can vacate your home with your own hands, in preparation for its demolition, after you spent your whole life in order to live in safety and stability.”
As the head of the Jerusalem Committee against Judaization, Nasser al-Hadmi, said that the notification of the occupation municipality to demolish a residential building in Wadi Qaddoum falls within the framework of the occupation’s Judaization policy, which is based on preventing Jerusalemites from building on their lands by not granting them building permits.
He added, “This is a systematic policy pursued by the occupation municipality since it occupied the eastern part of Jerusalem in 1967, which made the process of obtaining building permits for Al-Maqdisi almost impossible and costly in terms of money and time.”
He explains that the occupation authorities are increasing the frequency of issuing demolition notices for residential buildings in the Holy City, under the pretext of building without a permit, in order to escalate their attack on the Palestinian presence there, and in order to compete with time in order to Judaize the city.
He points out that the occupation authorities apply double standards in dealing with Jerusalemites, in return granting the settlers all necessary licensing procedures to build for them in the occupied city.
According to the occupation municipality, there are between 20-35 thousand housing units that were built in the eastern part of Jerusalem without a permit, and thus Al-Hedmi shows that the ability of the occupation municipality to demolish Jerusalem homes does not reach 1,000 housing units annually, and there are places that it cannot reach to carry out an operation demolition.
The Jerusalemite activist asserts that the Jerusalemites were able to stand firm in their city and lands, despite the occupation and its racist measures against them.
On Sunday, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OCHA) warned of an imminent danger of demolishing a building containing 12 housing units in the Wadi Qaddoum neighborhood in Silwan town, east of occupied Jerusalem.
In a report, the office said that a building comprising 12 housing units is in imminent danger of demolition in the Wadi Qaddoum area of the Silwan neighborhood.
Palestinian families recently received demolition orders from the occupation municipality in Jerusalem, and they were called to vacate the building within days.
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