The two brothers Issam and Ehab Abu Qalbin demolished on March 19, 2016 two residential apartments that are still under construction in the area of Ras Al-Amoud after being served a demolition order from Israel municipality of Jerusalem on the claim of "unlicensed construction". Noteworthy, the two brothers were supposed to move in to the apartment as soon as the construction is over. It should be marked that Issam was supposed to get married on August 2017 and Ehab is worker and has three children. Both brothers lost the chance of settling down after being forced to bring their apartments down by their own hands.
Citizen Issam told Land Research Center the following:
" My brother and I decided to build residences nearby the family house in the Ras Al-Amoud neighborhood of Hayy Al-A'raj. Construction works on the residences started in 2015 with a total area of 50m2. Each structure is composed of a bedroom, bathroom, kitchen and a guest room. While working on the first floor, employees from the occupation's municipality arrived at the construction site and delivered us an administrative demolition order. On March 08, 2016 employees from the municipality came back to the construction site with another demolition order attached with an aerial map illustrating the demolition location. The order came with a request for demolition signed by the head of the licensing department at Israel municipality, the legal advisor of the municipality and the general director. The request was then submitted to the mayor Nir Barakat who approved demolition effective".
He added:
"To avoid high fines and the demolition costs that might reach up to 50,000 NIS, we decided to demolish the residences by ourselves. Demolition was done on March 19, 2016.
At the morning of the next day, a force from Israel Police accompanied by a dozer and employees from the municipality arrived at the construction location. When sure the structures are demolished , the force took some photos of the place and left. Next day, we rented a dozer to complete the demolition so that the municipality doesn’t come back and fine us".
It should be marked that the occupation is targeting Jerusalem in all possible ways and means to empty the city from its inhabitants to take it over for the favor of colonization. Home demolition and demolition threats are dominant Israeli means in Jerusalem to force people evict the city.
Prepared by
The Land Research Center
LRC
