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Photos:
Illustrative photo and a map of Sour Baher, published by Maan News
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JERUSALEM (Ma’an) -- Israeli bulldozers demolished a car dealer’s office and two shipping containers in the occupied East Jerusalem village of Sur Bahir during the predawn hours of Tuesday morning, while a Palestinian man in Silwan demolished his own home following an Israeli order, amid a large-scale demolition campaign targeting Palestinian communities across the city.

Local sources in Sur Bahir said that the Jerusalem municipality ordered the structures to be demolished on the grounds that they were built on land owned by the Israel Land Authority (ILA).

Jerusalem municipality crews escorted by Israeli forces demolished the structures without summoning the owners, after which they proceeded to level the land, the sources said.

The car dealership owner, Mohammad Elayyan, said that the demolished structure was a wooden trailer he used as an office, and that he had previously applied to the municipality for building permits for the structures.

He added that Israeli forces had also confiscated commercial air conditioning equipment worth tens of thousands of dollars and a car from the dealership exhibition.

Elayyan said he rented the land from its owner and started his business two years ago.

The two containers demolished were owned by al-Atrash family. After they were destroyed, Israeli forces hung a banner on the rubble that read: “No entrance allowed. Land owned by Israel Land Authority.”

However, in a response to request for comment, a spokesperson for the Jerusalem municipality told Ma’an the municipality and its employees were not involved in the demolition.

A representative for ILA could not immediately be reached for comment.

The majority of Sur Bahir is located within the Jerusalem municipality, as the Israeli government expropriated it as state land in 1970. However, a small portion of the towns’ area is located in the Bethlehem district of the occupied West Bank, and further portion of the village lies beyond the Israeli segregation wall.