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BETHLEHEM (Ma'an) -- Israeli forces demolished a house in East Jerusalem on Tuesday on the pretext that it was being built without a permit, a local official said.

Fakhri Abu Diab, head of the Committee for the Defense of Silwan, told official news agency Wafa that Israeli bulldozers arrived early Tuesday and destroyed the home, which was under construction at the time.

The house, located in the Silwan neighborhood south of Jerusalem's Old City, was uninhabited at the time.

"The ruthless occupation is trying at any price to achieve its goal of displacing the indigenous people from their city and giving their land to settlers," Abu Diab said.

A 2011 report by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel found said that Israeli authorities have revoked the status of 14,084 Palestinian Jerusalemites since 1967, no longer permitting them to live in the city.

Israel captured East Jerusalem in the 1967 Six Day War and later annexed it in a move never recognized by the rest of the world.

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by Saed Bannoura - IMEMC & Agencies

Israeli bulldozers of the Jerusalem City Council demolished, on Tuesday morning, a Palestinian home in Sweij neighborhood, in Silwan, in occupied East Jerusalem, under the pretext that the home was built without a construction permit.

Fakhri Abu Thiab of the Committee for the Defense of Silwan reported that the demolished home was still under construction, and was a three-story building overlooking at the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Old city of occupied Jerusalem.

Abu Thiab added that the timing of this act “is an indication of the cruelty and the ugly face of the occupation that does not have mercy”, especially amidst the current cold weather and the pouring rain.

“Israel has no mercy on the Palestinians in occupied Jerusalem”, he added, “It tries, at all costs, to displace the indigenous Palestinians from their city so that Israel can hand it to the settlers”.

According to data collected by the Israeli Committee Against Home Demolitions (ICAHD) and was published a few months ago, Israel’s demolition of Palestinian homes is a systematic policy that aims at forcing the Palestinians to leave Jerusalem in order to maintain Jewish majority.

ICHAD estimates that Israel demolished at least 24.145 homes in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip since 1967.