Friday 21 August 2009

JCSER: Israel forced 18 families to demolish their own homes in five months


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[ 20/08/2009 - 10:48 AM ]

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC)-- The Jerusalem center for social and economic rights (JCSER) reported Wednesday that Israel from the beginning of March until the end of July forced 18 Palestinian families and citizens to demolish their own homes in occupied Jerusalem which led to the displacement of 136 people, mostly children and women.

The report explained that Israel forces Palestinians of Jerusalem to demolish their own homes through threatening them to impose exorbitant fines in addition to demolition expenses on them.

The report noted that the areas of Old City, Jabal Al-Mukabir, Silwan and Attour in Jerusalem are mostly targeted by self-demolition orders.

It added that the Palestinian citizens in the Old City received the largest number of orders of demolishing entire homes or new extensions added to existing buildings, saying that the number of these orders amounted to hundreds.

The report pointed out that Christian monasteries belonging to the Armenian church and the Greek Orthodox church were not excluded from self-demolition orders.

In another context, grand Mufti of Jerusalem Sheikh Mohamed Hussein said that the Israeli police changed the locks of Al-Nader door of the Aqsa Mosque.

Sheikh Hussein also reported that Israeli special forces conducted a drill in Al-Maghareba gate to climb the walls of the Aqsa Mosque simulating conditions of storming the holy Mosque.

The Mufti called on all Palestinian citizens in Jerusalem and the 1948 occupied lands to pay repeated visits to the Aqsa Mosque in the holy month of Ramadan to defend it against Israeli schemes to demolish it.

In the same context, Hamas lawmaker Dr. Ahmed Abu Halabiya strongly denounced Israeli special units for climbing the Aqsa Mosque’s walls, describing these drills as a very dangerous precedent.

Dr. Abu Halabiya expressed fears that these actions were part of an Israeli scheme to divide the Aqsa Mosque similar to what had happened in the Ibrahimi Mosque as a prelude to demolishing the holy Mosque.

For its part, the international Aqsa institution urged all media outlets and concerned organizations in the Arab and Muslim worlds to declare the 28th of August a day in solidarity with the Aqsa Mosque.

It also called on all mosque preachers to dedicate their Friday Khutbas (sermons) to speaking about the Aqsa mosque and the Israeli schemes to demolish it.

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