JERUSALEM: Israeli work crews on Monday began demolishing dozens of Palestinian homes on the outskirts of an east Jerusalem neighborhood, in one of the largest operations of its kind in years.
The demolitions capped a years-long legal battle over the buildings, constructed near the invisible line straddling the city and the occupied West Bank. Israel says the buildings were erected too close to its West Bank separation barrier. Residents say the buildings are on West Bank land, and the Palestinian Authority gave them construction permits.
In the wake of a recent Supreme Court decision clearing the way for the demolitions, Israeli work crews moved into the neighborhood overnight. Massive construction vehicles smashed through the roofs of several buildings, and large excavators were digging through the rubble.
Gilad Erdan, Israel’s minister of public security, said the Supreme Court ruled the illegal construction “constitutes a severe security threat and can provide cover to suicide bombers and other terrorists hiding among civilian population.”
He said that those who built houses along the separation barrier “took the law into their own hands.”
According to the United Nations, some 20 people already living in the buildings were being displaced, while 350 owners of properties that were under construction or not yet inhabited were also affected.
In a joint statement, senior UN humanitarian officials in the region expressed “sadness” over the demolitions and warned that many other homes could face “the same fate.”
“Israel’s policy of destroying Palestinian property is not compatible with its obligations under international humanitarian law,” they said.
Hussein Al-Sheikh, head of the civil affairs department of the Palestinians Authority, called Monday’s demolition a “crime” and demanded international intervention.
In Gaza, the territory’s Hamas rulers called for intensifying “resistance” to “the Zionist settlement project.”
“The increase in the occupation’s crimes against the residents of the holy city is a result of total American support,” said Hazem Qassem, a spokesman for the militant group.
Israel captured east Jerusalem and the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war. The international community considers both areas to be occupied territory, and the Palestinians seek them as parts of a future independent state.
Israel annexed east Jerusalem and considers it part of its capital — a step that is not internationally recognized. But the competing claims to the territory have created myriad legal complexities.
Israel built its separation barrier in the early 2000s in a move it says was needed to prevent Palestinian suicide bombers from reaching Israel from the West Bank. The Palestinians say the structure is an illegal land grab because it juts into the West Bank in many places.
Sur Baher is one of those places. In negotiations with residents, Israel built the route of the structure in Sur Baher inside the West Bank to prevent dividing the village and disrupting life, according to court documents.
Residents, claiming it is impossible to get Israeli building permits in east Jerusalem, began building the apartment buildings in the West Bank part of the village with permission from the Palestinian Authority.
Early this decade, the Israeli military ordered the construction to stop, saying it could not permit high-rise buildings so close to the separation barrier.
Israel’s Supreme Court this month rejected residents’ final appeal, clearing the way for the demolitions.
According to Ir Amim, an Israeli advocacy group that promotes equality and coexistence in the city, Israel has stepped up demolitions of unauthorized Palestinian properties in east Jerusalem.
It said Israel demolished some 63 housing units in the first half of this year, compared to 37 during the same period last year. Palestinian residents of east Jerusalem say it is nearly impossible to get a building permit from Israeli authorities.
Israel demolishes Palestinian homes in Jerusalem area
Israel demolishes Palestinian homes in Jerusalem area
- Dozens of Israeli police and military began sealing off at least four multi-story buildings in the Sur Baher area south of Jerusalem early Monday
- Palestinians accuse Israel of using security as a pretext to force them out of the area
Gaza’s living conditions worsen as strong winds and hypothermia kill 5
- Hundreds of tents and makeshift shelters were blown away or heavily damaged, the UN humanitarian office reported
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip: Strong winter winds collapsed walls onto flimsy tents for Palestinians displaced by war in Gaza, killing at least four people, hospital authorities said Tuesday.
Dangerous living conditions persist in Gaza after more than two years of devastating Israeli bombardment and aid shortfalls. A ceasefire has been in effect since Oct. 10. But aid groups say that Palestinians broadly lack the shelter necessary to withstand frequent winter storms.
The dead include two women, a girl and a man, according to Shifa Hospital, Gaza City’s largest, which received the bodies.
The Gaza Health Ministry said Tuesday a 1-year-old boy died of hypothermia overnight, while the spokesman for the UN’s children agency said over 100 children and teenagers have been killed by “military means” since the ceasefire began.
Meanwhile, Israel’s military said it exchanged fire Tuesday with six people spotted near its troops deployed in southern Gaza, killing at least two of them in western Rafah.
Family mourns relatives killed by wall collapse
Three members of the same family — 72-year-old Mohamed Hamouda, his 15-year-old granddaughter and his daughter-in-law — were killed when an 8-meter (26-foot) high wall collapsed onto their tent in a coastal area along the Mediterranean shore of Gaza City, Shifa Hospital said. At least five others were injured.
Their relatives on Tuesday began removing the rubble that had buried their loved ones and rebuilding the tent shelters for survivors.
“The world has allowed us to witness death in all its forms,” Bassel Hamouda said after the funeral. “It’s true the bombing may have temporarily stopped, but we have witnessed every conceivable cause of death in the world in the Gaza Strip.”
A second woman was killed when a wall fell on her tent in the western part of the city, Shifa Hospital said.
Hundreds of tents and makeshift shelters were blown away or heavily damaged, the UN humanitarian office reported.
The UN and its humanitarian partners were distributing tents, tarps, blankets and clothes as well as nutrition and hygiene items across Gaza, said the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
The majority of Palestinians live in makeshift tents since their homes were reduced to rubble during the war. When storms strike the territory, Palestinian rescue workers warn people against seeking shelter inside damaged buildings for fears of collapse. Aid groups say not enough shelter materials are entering Gaza during the truce.
In the central town of Zawaida, Associated Press footage showed inundated tents Tuesday morning, with people trying to rebuild their shelters.
Yasmin Shalha, a displaced woman from the northern town of Beit Lahiya, stood against winds that lifted the tarps of tents around her as she stitched hers back together with needle and thread. She said it had fallen on top of her family the night before, as they slept.
“The winds were very, very strong. The tent collapsed over us,” the mother of five told AP. “As you can see, our situation is dire.”
On the shore in southern Gaza, tents were swept into the Mediterranean. Families pulled what was left from the sea, while some built sand barriers to hold back rising water.
“The sea took our mattresses, our tents, our food and everything we owned,” Shaban Abu Ishaq said, as he dragged part of his tent out of the sea in the Muwasi area of Khan Younis.
Mohamed Al-Sawalha, a 72-year-old man from the northern refugee camp of Jabaliya, said the conditions most Palestinians in Gaza endure are barely livable.
“It doesn’t work neither in summer nor in winter,” he said of the tent. “We left behind houses and buildings (with) doors that could be opened and closed. Now we live in a tent. Even sheep don’t live like we do.”
Residents aren’t able to return to their homes in Israeli-controlled areas of the Gaza Strip.
Child death toll in Gaza rises
Gaza’s Health Ministry said the 1-year-old in the central town of Deir Al-Balah was the seventh fatality due to the cold conditions since winter started. Others included a baby just seven days old and a 4-year-old girl, whose deaths were announced Monday.
The ministry, part of the Hamas-run government, says more than 440 people were killed by Israeli fire and their bodies brought to hospitals since the ceasefire went into effect. The ministry maintains detailed casualty records that are seen as generally reliable by UN agencies and independent experts.
UNICEF spokesman James Elder said Tuesday at least 100 children under the age of 18 — 60 boys and 40 girls — have been killed since the truce began due to military operations, including drone strikes, airstrikes, tank shelling and use of live ammunition. Those figures, he said, reflect incidents where enough details have been compiled to warrant recording, but the total toll is expected to be higher. He said hundreds of children have been wounded.
While “bombings and shootings have slowed” during the ceasefire, they have not stopped, Elder told reporters at a UN briefing in Geneva by video from Gaza City. “So what the world now calls calm would be considered a crisis anywhere else,” he said.
Gaza’s population of more than 2 million people has been struggling to keep the cold weather and storms at bay while facing shortages of humanitarian aid and a lack of more substantial temporary housing, which is badly needed during the winter months. It’s the third winter since the war between Israel and Hamas started on Oct. 7, 2023, when militants stormed into southern Israel and killed around 1,200 people and abducted 251 others into Gaza.
Gaza’s Health Ministry says more than 71,400 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s retaliatory offensive.
