Description

JERUSALEM (Ma’an) -- Israeli authorities demolished a home in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Beit Hanina on Monday.

Witnesses told Ma'an that the home belonged to Nidal al-Razim, whose brother was freed as part of the October prisoner exchange deal between Hamas and Israel.

Israeli forces raided the neighborhood on Monday morning and surrounded al-Razim's home. Authorities claim that the house was built without a license and witnesses said it was demolished before allowing the family to gather their belongings.

ICAHD, a prominent Israeli non-governmental organization, said in October that Israel was forcing Palestinians out of East Jerusalem as part of a deliberate policy that might constitute a war crime.

There are some 300,000 Palestinians residents in East Jerusalem, representing about 35 percent of the city's total population, but ICAHD said that since Israel took control of Palestinian areas it had systematically prevented their development.

ICAHD said it was virtually impossible for Palestinians to obtain building permits to house their growing families.

Israel seized East Jerusalem, including the Old City, in a 1967 war. It later illegally annexed the area and surrounding West Bank villages into a Jerusalem municipality that it declared the united and eternal capital of Israel.