Israel cuts water supplies to Jerusalem neighbourhood

Israel has cut water supplies to a number of homes in the occupied East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Silwan on Tuesday, accusing local Palestinian residents of not paying their bills.

Israeli water company Gihon cut water to a number of homes in Silwan after households allegedly accumulated debts, according to Palestinian Authority (PA) owned WAFA News Agency. 

Israel handed out notices of home demolitions in the neighbourhood on Tuesday for the second time in less than a week.

Workers from Israel's Jerusalem municipality and Israeli police accused the Palestinian residents of not obtaining permits to construct their homes. These are notoriously expensive and difficult to obtain, leaving Palestinians with few options but to build without an official sanction by the occupying authority.

On Sunday several Palestinian families in Silwan were notified that their houses would soon be demolished.

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.

Because of this, 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.