OCCUPIED JERUSALEM (Palestine Foundation Information Center)The Israeli occupation authority (IOA) has demolished a total of 623 Palestinian homes and structures across Jerusalem since October 7, 2023, according to the Jerusalem governor’s office.
“The demolition list included homes — some inhabited for decades and others under construction — as well as commercial and economic facilities that provided livelihoods for dozens of Jerusalemite families,” the governor’s office said in a statement on Wednesday.
“Israeli bulldozers, heavily guarded by forces, demolished a house today in Hizma town in the northeast of the city as part of a systematic campaign targeting the Palestinian presence in Occupied Jerusalem,” the governor’s office added.
The office accused the IOA of forcing Jerusalemite citizens to demolish their own homes under threat of hefty fines or imprisonment, describing such an Israeli policy as a “systematic racist practice aimed at involving the victims in its crime and exhausting them mentally and financially, with the ultimate goal of driving them out of the holy city.”
“The families affected by these demolitions have paid substantial fines over many years — amounts that, in some cases, have exceeded the original cost of construction. Despite this, the occupation authority continues to deny them building permits or impose prohibitively strict conditions, making it nearly impossible for Palestinians to obtain legal authorization for construction,” the office explained.
“The approval rate for construction licensing applications remains below two percent as Palestinians are only allowed to build on no more than 13 percent of the total area of the occupied city of east Jerusalem,” it added.
