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News :: Civil & Human Rights

City to raze homes of 1,000 residents in East Jerusalem neighborhood

The "Quiet Deportation" of Palestinians continues.
The Jerusalem Municipality has begun proceedings to raze 88 buildings housing some 1,000 residents in the Silwan neighborhood, to "restore the area to its landscape of yore," according to the city engineer, Uri Shetrit. The demolition, if it goes ahead, will be among the largest to take place in East Jerusalem since 1967.
The Silwan houses are within a neighborhood the Palestinians call "al-Bustan" and the municipality calls "King's Valley." It's located inside the wadi sloping down from the City of David, below the Old City, adjacent to the compound settled by Jews from the non-profit organization Elad. Wadia al-Fahari, who is coordinating residents' action, says that the neighborhood's earliest houses date from the 1940s and '50s, and most houses were built in the late 1980s and early '90s on private land belonging to Silwan villagers.
Shetrit issued a letter in November 2004 "ordering the removal of illegal construction in King's Valley." Shetrit's letter explained that the area is "the beginnings of Jerusalem" from 5,000 years ago, and that "King's Valley, along with the tel of David's City, constitutes an entire archaeological entity in which all of the sites are interconnected."
Shetrit wrote that a plan prepared in 1977 designated the area open public territory. Shetrit told Haaretz that nearly all of the 88 houses were built illegally, except for "four to five single homes on the compound's outskirts." He says he instructed city officials to deal "most forcefully" with the code violations, and that the process of bringing law suits against the Palestinian residents has begun.
Shetrit conceded there are other sites in East Jerusalem with more illegal construction, but he decided to target the neighborhood in Silwan to restore the region's ancient vistas.
"Kidron stream and Hinnom Valley are of tremendous historic and landscape importance," he said. "I remember walking there 20 years ago and there were gardens and running water. I want to return to that state."
Shetrit says he is relying on the fact that the 1977 plan designates the area "green space," making any construction illegal. The city engineer says he doesn't want to demolish homes built before 1967, but intends to circumvent the statute of limitations that makes it impossible to raze houses built more than seven years ago, even if built without permits. "The building offense runs out, but there's no statute of limitations on using the illegal house, so we can bar residents from entering their homes, even if we can't destroy them," Shetrit says. He's hoping an abandoned house will prove easier to destroy later on.
Shetrit's ultimate plan is to set up a national park on the land, connecting to the Jewish compound in the City of David and thereby creating an area without Palestinian residents adjacent to the Old City, but Shetrit denies that the organizations of Jewish settlers have any hand in the demolition plan.
So far, some 30 court orders have been delivered. Fahari says residents will use all legal means to resist "this terrible transfer" since "we have nowhere to take our wives and children and old folks."
Attorney Sami Arshid, who represents some residents, says that demolition proceedings have also begun against pre-1967 houses by utilizing an unusual clause that permits a building to be razed without convicting the owners of code violations. "You convict the stone, not the man," Arshid said.
Municipal sources said efforts are being made to locate substitute government-owned land for the 1,000 residents.
The plan has raised concerns about the demolition's impact on Jewish-Arab relations in Jerusalem. Shetrit is aware it could provoke protests and international pressure, but says "he is determined to carry out the plan."
 
 

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