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Demolition by Israel for lacking permits: ‘60,000 Palestinians at risk of losing homes’

* Israeli structures in West Bank settlements increase by 69 percent

JERUSALEM: At least 60,000 of the 225,000 Palestinians in Israeli-occupied Jerusalem risk having their homes demolished by the Israeli authorities because they were built without permits, a UN agency said on Friday.

To date, approximately 1,500 demolition orders have been issued in east Jerusalem, which if implemented, would leave about 9,000 people homeless, almost half of them children, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in a report. Palestinians say the demolitions are an attempt to pushing them out of the city, but municipal authorities insist they simply follow the law and raze houses built without the necessary permits.

OCHA said that at least 28 percent of Palestinian homes in east Jerusalem have been built without the Israeli permits, which residents say are nearly impossible to obtain. “As a result, at least 60,000 out of 225,000 Palestinians in east Jerusalem are at risk of having their homes demolished by the Israeli authorities,” OCHA said. It said planners have earmarked only 13 percent of annexed east Jerusalem for Palestinian construction, while one third has been expropriated for settlement housing projects.

About 200,000 Israeli settlers live in east Jerusalem. Israeli settlements in east Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank are one of the main stumbling blocks in the moribund Middle East peace process. Israel annexed east Jerusalem after capturing the city in the Six Day War of 1967, declaring the city its “eternal, undivided capital.” The move has not been recognised by the international community and all foreign embassies are located in the commercial capital Tel Aviv. Palestinians want to make east Jerusalem the capital of their promised state.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights called on Israel on Friday to immediately stop evicting Palestinians and demolishing their homes in east Jerusalem. The demolitions, and calls by Jerusalem’s Israeli mayor, Nir Barkat, to expand Jewish settlements on occupied land, have stoked tensions in the city, and put Israel on a possible collision course with its US and European allies.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, visiting Israel in March, said demolitions were “unhelpful”, and Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat has forecast they will provoke the first showdown between President Barack Obama and Israel’s new right-wing prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. Many of the homes are located in areas zoned as “green areas” by the Jerusalem municipality. This includes the Silwan area, where the municipality plans to demolish 88 Palestinian residential buildings to make way for an archaeological park.

“Although the Israeli government has indicated that the houses being demolished did not have the necessary building permits, the fact is that Palestinians lack meaningful access to such permits,” the Human Rights Commissioner said. Only 13 percent of annexed East Jerusalem land area is currently zoned by the Israeli authorities for Palestinian construction, the statement added, and most of that is already overcrowded with construction. “Meanwhile, the growth in the number of new structures in Israeli settlements and outposts in the West Bank increased by 69 percent in 2008, compared to 2007,” it noted, citing figures from the Israeli rights group, Peace Now. agencies

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