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Dozens of police officers in riot gear outside the Naqib family home. (Oren Ziv/Activestills.org)

Demolishing Hannah al-Naqib’s home in Lod, February 10, 2015. (Photo by Yotam Ronen/Activestills.org)

Hannah al-Naqib (right) as Israeli authorities demolish her home in Lod, February 10, 2015. (Photo by Oren Ziv/Activestills.org)

The Lydd master plan. (photo: Said Abu Hamed)
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LOD, Israel (Ma'an) -- Israeli forces on Tuesday demolished the home of a Palestinian family in the Israeli city of Lod.

Israeli forces closed all entrances to the property and forcibly evacuated the al-Naqib family, before demolishing the home.

Hundreds of Palestinian residents gathered to support the family, with dozens of Israeli security personnel present at the demolition.

The home belongs to Hana al-Naqib, where she lives with her four children.

The al-Naqib family received a demolition order for the home in late 2014, which claimed that the property was not registered with the appropriate Israeli ministry.

A lawyer for the family, Qais Nasser, requested an urgent appeal to the court demanding that the demolition be postponed, but it was rejected.

Family member Nabil al-Naqib told Ma'an that the family has all the required documents that "prove that the land belongs to the family and is licensed for building."

"The family was planning a sit-in protest in front of the house to protest the demolition order, but a large force of Israeli police and bulldozers arrived and demolished the house," he added.

Another family member, Maha al-Naqib, said that the land has belonged to the family to the creation of the Israeli state in 1948, and that the homeowner could not appeal the court decision due to financial difficulties.

Before 1948, Lod, or Lydda as it is known in Arabic, was a mixed town of Palestinian Muslims and Christians.

Thousands of Palestinians were forcibly displaced from the town by Israeli forces during the 1948 war, and dozens were killed.

Israel's 1.3 million Palestinian citizens, who make up just over 20 percent of the Israeli population, are the descendants of 160,000 Palestinians who managed to remain on their land when the state of Israel was established in 1948.
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he Naqib family has lived on their land since before 1948. Many Palestinian families in the city live in what the State calls ‘illegal conditions’ — and under the constant threat of demolition — because they cannot attain building permits for their homes.

By Rami Younis for 972Mag

Hundreds of police officers descended on the Al-Karm neighborhood of Lydd (“Lod” in Hebrew, “Lydda” in English) Tuesday morning in order to evict single mother Hannah al-Naqib and her four children from their home, and to demolish it.

Police blocked off the surrounding streets and prevented local residents from approaching while they were forcibly evicting the mother and her children. Around 100 residents managed to break through and protested the eviction and demolition.

To help the single mother, Hannah’s family and neighbors built the home for her. It had a demolition order against it because it was built without the proper permits. The family tried to stop or delay the demolition in court, but to no avail.

The demolished home is next to a number of other homes owned by the Naqib family, all on land owned by the family, and many of which also have demolition orders pending.
Dozens of police officers in riot gear outside the Naqib family home.

The Naqib family lives on land near the Ganei Aviv neighborhood, which was expropriated from Palestinian families in a procedure whose legality has been in doubt ever since. The family has lived on the land since before 1948, and the local urban building plan gave a green light for building the new neighborhood years ago. The city, however, has yet to approve a master plan, and even destroyed a house in the 1990s.

According to a map of the urban building plan, one can see that their homes were built on land slated for residential construction. Thus, the city’s decision regarding “illegal construction” seems especially arbitrary:

According to activists nearly 80 percent of Palestinians in Lydd live in “illegal conditions” according to the state’s definition, due to the fact that their homes do not have building permits. This situation allows authorities to use the threat of demolition against a large part of the local population, in accordance with the needs of the political establishment.

The author is a Palestinian activist and writer. Read this article in Hebrew on Local Call here.