Israel forces three Palestinian families to demolish Jerusalem homes

Israel forced three Palestinians families in occupied east Jerusalem on Monday to demolish their own homes, as Israeli settlers transported mobile homes to locations near Nablus and Hebron, raising fears over building of new settlement outposts.

Israeli forces also closed off the Silwan area of east Jerusalem on Monday evening and detained a number of Palestinians in Jerusalem and the West Bank.

One of the Palestinians forced to demolish their own homes was Mohammed Nassar al-Husseini from Silwan. Israeli forces told him that if he did not destroy the house himself, they would demolish it and charge him for the cost of demolition.

"My heart breaks apart to do this… I will sleep in my car. God help everyone," he told the Palestinian news agency Qastal.

Jamal Ajjaj from the Jabal Mukabber area of east Jerusalem and Izzat Ziyado, whose home is located near the Israeli settlement of Gilo in southeastern Jerusalem, were also forced to demolish their family homes.

Israeli authorities claimed that the three houses were built without a licence.

Across east Jerusalem, Palestinians are frequently denied building permits or face extreme barriers to receiving them.

Meanwhile, Israeli authorities have confiscated one-third of Palestinian land, occupied since 1967, to build settlements - deemed illegal under international law.

More than 100,000 Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem are at risk of displacement, according to the UN office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Also on Monday, settlers transported seven mobile homes to a location near the settlement of Shvut Rachel, which is built on land belonging to the Palestinian village of Jalud south of Nablus.

Murad Ishtewi, a Palestinian official responsible for resisting settlement expansion in the northern West Bank, told The New Arab’s Arabic language service that this was an attempt to take over more land for Shvut Rachel and expand it.

Israeli forces also transported three mobile homes to a plot of land belonging to a Palestinian farmer east of Hebron in the southern West Bank, and erected a barbed wire fence around them, in what is believed to be an attempt to establish a new settlement outpost.

A Palestinian child was also injured in his hand on Monday in Hebron when settlers threw stones at him.