Silwan family forced to demolish its own home
Three more homes on the same street were ordered emptied, one of them lived in since 1966.
The Jerusalem Governorate said Israeli authorities made a Palestinian family pull down its own house before dawn on Sunday in the Ein al-Fauqa neighbourhood of Silwan, south of Al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied Jerusalem, on the grounds that it had been built without a permit.
The house measured 70 square metres, went up about two years ago, and sheltered Mamoun Salem Shyoukhi, his wife and their three children.
The governorate said orders were served the same night on three other homes in the neighbourhood. Na'im Maragha's house, 40 square metres and lived in since 1966, is to be emptied in full. A 40-square-metre section of Salah Maragha's 68-square-metre house is to be vacated. In'am Maragha and her sister Rabia were ordered to remove a 6-square-metre part of theirs; the governorate said both women are in poor health.
At least 15 people live in the four homes between them.
Owners in Silwan are commonly left to carry out demolitions themselves, because refusing means the municipality does the work and bills the family for it, on top of the fine. The cost is the reason a father dismantles his own roof, and it is why these cases appear in the record as compliance rather than as demolition.
The governorate described the orders as part of a continuing removal of Palestinians from Silwan. The permit ground cited for the Shyoukhi house is the standard one in these files, and the governorate's account is the only one on the record for all four.