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ISRAEL / DEMOLITIONS
STORY: ISRAEL / DEMOLITIONS
TRT: 1.27
SOURCE: UNRWA
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 27 OCTOBER 2009, EAST JERUSALEM, ISRAEL
27 OCTOBER 2009, EAST JERUSALEM, ISRAEL
1. Wide shot, excavators at work
2. Med shot, Nimer woman in agony
3. Med shot, Excavator leaving the Sur Bahir neighborhood in the southern part of Jerusalem after having demolished the Nimer house
4. Med shot, Israeli border police escorting excavators out of Sur Bahir
5. Med shot, boy and little girl watch the border police leave
6. Med shot, police cars and police by foot leaving
7. Close up, young boy of Nimer family watches demolished house
8. Med shot, Ali Nimer, owner of the demolished house sitting outside neighbor's house
9. Med shot, members of Nimer family walking past demolished house
10. Wide shot, demolished Nimer family house
Despite recent assurances from Israeli authorities to the United Nations (UN) that the house demolitions in the Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem would cease, another wave of demolitions hit Palestinian areas of the city today (27 Oct).
The homes of six families were demolished. Twenty-six Palestinians, among them ten children, lost their homes. Another two families, nineteen people in total, saw their houses being partially demolished.
Tuesday's round of demolitions brought the number of Palestinians displaced as a result of forced evictions or house demolitions in the occupied Palestinian territory to over six hundred, half of them children, since the beginning of the year. At least another five hundred have been affected as a result of partial demolitions of their homes or livelihoods.
In the impoverished Palestinian Sur Bahir neighborhood in the southern part of Jerusalem Israeli border police in heavy armor arrived early this morning and forced three households of the Nimer family out of their two-storey building.
Fifteen persons, seven of them children were thrown out of their home. The border police were accompanied by about twenty young Israeli volunteers who moved the belongings and furniture of the Nimer family out of the building before three excavators started demolishing the house.
The families in the house said they were not given enough time to move all their and personal belongings out of the house before the excavators started their work.
Israeli authorities say house demolitions are carried out on homes that have been built without official building permits, rendering them “illegal”. According to the UN lack of adequate urban planning in the Palestinian areas of Jerusalem, combined with strict administrative requirements and high fees makes it extremely difficult for Palestinian residents to obtain such permits, leaving them no choice but to build “illegally” to provide shelter for their growing families.
Palestinian families which moved outside the municipal boundaries of the city risked losing their Jerusalem identity cards, and with them the right to live in and access the city.
Conservative estimates indicate that as many as sixty thousand Palestinians in the Palestinian areas of Jerusalem may be at risk of forced evictions, demolitions and displacement. Many others are facing mounting pressure to leave the city as a result of extensive physical, legal and administrative restrictions that affect every aspect of their daily lives.
The UN and other actors have repeatedly called on Israeli authorities to halt forced evictions and demolitions of Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem and other parts of the occupied Palestinian territory. Such actions run counter to international law and have serious and long-term negative impact on Palestinian families and communities.
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