Occupied Jerusalem, ALRAY - The Israeli occupation forces (IOF) has pursued policies of killing, arresting and displacing against Palestinian people in Jerusalem.

Over many years, the IOF has been destroying the Jerusalemite houses for the simple reason that they do not have permits.

The Jerusalemite have to choose between two options: either they have to demolish their own homes with their own hands, in order to avoid punishment from Israel’s Jerusalem Municipality, or the IOF will demolish them and make the Jerusalemite pay high fines plus demolition costs.

“The Israeli occupation bulldozers demolished my home which was a shelter for 35 members,” the Jerusalemite Issa Jaavrah said while he was standing upon the rubble of his home, noting that the family got homeless.

“This is our destiny. However, we will withstand on our land and we will build a new home in spite of the all IOF’s strict procedures which aim at expelling us from our own home,” Jaavrah said.

“Our life got a hell after the demolition of our home, which we had used to live in. Also, our memories and dreams are demolished with the home,” the Jerusalemite aged Fatima Jaavrah gloomily said.

Emptiness the City of Arabs

The Jerusalemite activist and member of the Committee for the Defense of Jerusalem Properties, Fakhri Abu Diab said that the IOF has pursued a policy of demolition against the Jerusalemite, which aims at displacing the Palestinian holy city of Jerusalem and bringing the Israeli settlers to live inside the Palestinian neighborhoods adjacent the al-Aqsa mosque.

“The Israeli occupation municipality of Jerusalem intensified, over the past few years, distributing the demolition notices to the Palestinian families in Jerusalem, especially in Silwan town,” Abu Diab added.

Abu Diab revealed that over 62% of the Palestinian homes in Silwan are ordered to be demolished, even the ones that have permits.

A collective punishment

It is expected within the “collective punishment campaign” that the Israeli municipality will issue demolition orders for all the Palestinian homes in Silwan in the upcoming months. Thus, displacing the Palestinians in preparation for controlling the town, Abu Diab said.

Abu Diab pointed out that 4600 demolition orders were being distributed in the recent months.

Abu Diab added that the Israeli occupation has carried out 163 of the demolition orders against Palestinian properties in Jerusalem since the beginning of 2016, indicating that Silwan needs yearly approximately 500 housing units due to the normal population expanding.

He called on the international community to apply the UN’s decisions which consider the collective punishment policy including the demolition of the Palestinian homes in Jerusalem as a war crime punishable by the international law.

Abu Diab also called the international community including the Arab countries to put pressure on the Israeli authorities to stop the demolition policy against the Jerusalemite, which aims at Judaizing Jerusalem.

Ethnic Cleansing

Ali al-Sartawi, expert in the international law affirmed that Eastern Jerusalem is considered to be one of the territories that was occupied in 1967, noting that the occupation does not have the right at any rate to confiscate the Palestinian citizens’ properties in Jerusalem and demolish them.

He said that the occupation has deliberately changed the reality of Jerusalem since occupying it through the restrictions put on people of Jerusalem.

A deliberate Judaization

Al-Sartawi noted that the Jerusalemite resort ,in light of the Israeli obstacles, to build homes in the adjacent areas of Jerusalem, or in the areas which locate outside the apartheid wall.

Thus, the occupation achieves its aims of getting demographic change inside of the Jerusalemite neighborhoods through expelling people of Jerusalem to place the Jewish.

Al-Sartawi indicated that homes demolition policy falls under ethnic cleansing policy, and it severely violates the article 53 of the Forth Geneva Convention.

International law violation

Al-Sartawi also added the homes demolition policy is a blatant violation of the article 17 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights issued on December 1948.

He said that Israel tries through homes demolition policy to expel the Palestinians from their own lands and deprive them the right to live freely, safely and in stability.

Trnaslated by Haytham Sh. Hararah for ALRAY NEWS AGENCY