Israel to force Palestinian family in Jerusalem to demolish their own shop

A Palestinian family in occupied East Jerusalem is being forced to demolish their own shop after Israel gave them an order to dismantle the structure.

Israel’s West Jerusalem municipality had prior to this, issued a demolition notice for the store, under the pretext of lacking a building permit in East Jerusalem’s Silwan neighbourhood.

In November, a similar incident occurred in which a Palestinian shop owner destroyed his own shop to avoid demolition fees if Israel was to demolish his shop.

The municipality at the beginning of November threatened Amin Abbasi into demolishing his own shop, in Silwan, within a 30-day deadline.

He was told that Israeli forces will demolish it and force him to pay extortionate demolition fees should he refuse to tear down his premises.

Four out of five of Palestinians in occupied East Jerusalem live under the poverty line, and applying for building permits comes with various taxes and fees amounting to tens of thousands of dollars.

As a result, only seven percent of Jerusalem building permits have been allocated to Palestinian neighbourhoods in the past few years.

Applications for building permits are also known to take years to be processed, giving Israeli courts a loophole to increase Palestinian home demolitions by branding structures as "illegal".