Israeli forces have demolished a two-story Palestinian house in the Silwan neighborhood of al-Quds, as the regime keeps up its land grab policies in the occupied territories in disregard of international law.
According to witnesses, Israeli police stormed Bir Ayoub area in the neighborhood on Tuesday and cordoned off the building, which had been built 10 years earlier, preventing anyone from approaching it, Palestine’s official Wafa news agency reported.
Israeli forces claimed that the house belonging to two Palestinian brothers, whose families comprise 12 members, was built without a permit.
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Police officers have ordered the two families to empty all of the contents of the two-apartment house before a bulldozer tore them down, reducing them to rubble.
Late in June, the Israeli regime started the mass destruction of Palestinian houses in the Silwan neighborhood to make way for settlements in the occupied territory.
According to Palestinian media, Israeli forces had begun the demolitions by raiding Silwan, which is home to about 33,000 Palestinians, and destroying a shop in the al-Bustan area.
The Silwan neighborhood has for years been targeted by illegal Israeli settler organizations. Some of the Palestinian families in Silwan have been living there for more than 50 years since they were displaced from the Old City in the 1960s. The Palestinian properties in the area are claimed by Israeli extremists backed by Ateret Cohanim, a right-wing foundation that works to strengthen Jewish presence in al-Quds.
The Tel Aviv regime also plans to force out Palestinian families from the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in an attempt to replace them with settlers. That plan sparked days of fighting between Gaza-based Hamas and the Israeli regime in May.
More than 600,000 Israelis live in over 230 settlements built since the 1967 Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and al-Quds. All Israeli settlements are illegal under international law. The United Nations Security Council has condemned Israel’s settlement activities in the occupied territories in several resolutions.
