On September 11, 2012, Sami abu Diab of Silwan was forced to dismantle the roof of his house a week after he finished building it due to an Israeli demolition order which he tried to avoid by doing so. Sami roofed a 16-m2-room which he amended to his 2-bedroom-house inhabited by a 6-member family.
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Yousuf abu Diab, Sami’s brother said: ‘Sami and I had been living in our parents house which was built before 1967; in 1991, I built my own apartment over the family’s residence and in 1994, Sami also built his own over my apartment. During construction, officers of the Israeli Municipality in the Occupied City showed up and handed us a stop-work order and informed us of a Court session. The Court ordered the demolition of the house and 90,000 ILS in fines. In 2000, my mother and I received a 33,000 ILS penalty on the pretext of adding two verandas, 40 m2 and 16 m2.‘
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Picture 2-3: dismantling the roof
Yousuf added: ‘for 12 years, we have been trying to obtain construction permits but our efforts were futile despite acquiring every document the Israeli Municipality in the Occupied City asked for. Architect, Abdul Kareem Lafi and Zyad Qi’war, an attorney of law were put in charge for or file. The Israeli Municipality in the Occupied City rejected our application by claiming that the area of the house is bigger than the area in the schematics and demanded a new plan. Two weeks earlier, my brother roofed his house with bricks but the lawyer advised him to remove it and include it in the new plan so as not to give the Israelis any excuse to demolish the house, so he did‘.
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Picture 4: the main entrance to the building
