Al-Maqdese held an urgent press conference at its Al-Ram office, in order to disclose the serious information regarding Jerusalem Municipality plans for the future of Palestinians in East Jerusalem. MSD revealed in the conference a map issued on 28/12/2009 by the Jerusalem Municipality. By this, the Municipality plans to demolish hundreds of Palestinian residency buildings in Silwan and other neighborhoods as Al-Bustan, and Al-Thouri.
Al-Maqdese had a chance and got the map through its own resources. This map
highlighted 312 residency buildings in East Jerusalem that are threatened with
demolition by Jerusalem Municipality.
The map shows a yellow circle highlights Al-Bustan Area near Silwan southern Al-
Aqsa Mosque which will be demolished. As a result, 88 residency buildings will be
demolished, and so, 1000 Palestinians will consequently be displaced.
Also, its shows other residency buildings threatened with demolition in Wadi Hilwa
and Al-Thouri neighborhoods.
The map shows a red circle highlights Silwan neighborhood, in this area there is an Israeli building called “Beit Yehonatan”.
This is an illegal building; it hasn’t a building permit and consists of 7 floors which deviated from the regional outline plan, which permits only building up to 2 floors. Accordingly, many demolition orders have been issued to demolish the
building but they have not carried out yet1. Instead, it received constant police protection. Recently, Jerusalem municipality issued a new outline plan in order to “Legalize” the building where this plan will give building permits up to 4 floors instead of 2 in the building area.
Moreover, the map used Jewish names instead of the famous and well-known Arabic
ones for areas in East Jerusalem. For instance, Silwan was named “Air David”, Wadi-
Hilwa was named “Kfar Hshelwah” and Al-Bustan was named “Gad Hmealakh”.
This clearly insures the Israeli Government’s racism actions and the continuation of
its ethnic cleansing and collective punishment policy toward Palestinians in
Jerusalem. Moreover, the demolitions will be implemented at any time as they
approved the plan.
1 In January 2007, the Jerusalem Civil Court for local Affairs ordered the house to be sealed. Since then, the case moved through all the instances of the court system and they all upheld the ruling. Since July, 2008 there has been an “active order”, i.e., a court order that the municipality executes immediately. Judge G. Canfy-Steinitz of the Jerusalem District Court rejected the appeal, and the defendants were not allowed to appeal to the Supreme Court. But the demolition orders haven’t carried out yet.
