Description

JERUSALEM (Ma'an) -- Israeli municipality staff delivered demolition notices and summons to Palestinians in the Issawiya neighborhood in occupied East Jerusalem, on Thursday.

Muhammad Abu al-Hummus, member of a local follow-up committee, said that Israeli forces escorted the staff of the municipality who took pictures of buildings, houses and streets of the neighborhood, before hanging demolition notices and summons to meet with the municipality for owners of those structures.

The notices claimed that the structures lacked permits.

Abu al-Hummus added that these structures were built years ago.

He pointed out that the staff of the municipality raids the neighborhood, escorted by Israeli soldiers, on a weekly basis delivering similar notices which raises tensions in the area.

Israel uses the pretext of building without a permit to carry out demolitions of Palestinian-owned homes on a regular basis.

Israel rarely grants Palestinians permits to build in East Jerusalem, though the Jerusalem municipality has claimed that compared to the Jewish population, they receive a disproportionately low number of permit applications from Palestinian communities, which also see high approval ratings.

For Jewish Israelis in occupied East Jerusalem's illegal settlements, the planning, marketing, development, and infrastructure are funded and executed by the Israeli government. By contrast, in Palestinian neighborhoods, all the burden falls on individual families to contend with a lengthy permit application that can last several years and cost tens of thousands of dollars.