While the world looks at Gaza, demolitions in East Jerusalem intensify

With media attention focused on the Gaza war, Israel is intensifying demolitions of Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem.

One area particularly hard hit is Walaja, just across a valley from the settlement neighbourhood of Gilo. During three weeks in February, bulldozers destroyed ten houses there on the grounds that they were built without permits, which are impossible to obtain because authorities never drew up a building plan for the area.

Part of Walaja, including a third of the village’s 3000 residents, is in territory annexed to Jerusalem after the 1967 war. But as residents note wryly, the only service the municipality provided them with was demolitions, which drove some families into the nearby Bethlehem area in the West Bank.

It is very difficult to get building permits in the crowded Arab areas of East Jerusalem and most residents don't vote in municipal elections so their areas tend to be ignored by the municipality.

“We want to preserve our families here,” says Hasan Abu Tin, who serves on a committee advancing an independent building plan that villagers and left-wing Israeli allies hope will at long last gain official recognition. To their dismay, however, demolitions are only increasing in the meantime.

“The existence of the village is threatened,” says Abu Tin, himself a building contractor whose house is opposite the concrete West Bank separation barrier.

“I build for the Israelis and they come here and demolish,” he says.