Agencies-Gaza post
Israel halts construction of four houses in Ramallah, destroys another in Jerusalem
Israeli occupation authorities decided on Sunday to halt the construction of four houses in the village of Budrus in the occupied West Bank province of Ramallah, according to local sources.
Abdel-Nasser Murrar told WAFA that the Israeli troops handed notifications to local Palestinian citizens asking them to stop the construction of four houses in the village, under the pretext of lacking an Israeli construction permit.
Israeli rejects to permit virtually any Palestinian construction in Area C, which constitutes 60 percent of the occupied West Bank and falls under full Israeli forces rule, forcing residents to build without obtaining rarely-granted permits to provide shelters for their families.
In contrast, Israel much more easily provides over 700,000 Jewish Israeli settlers their building permits and provides them with roads, electricity, water, and sewage systems that remain inaccessible to many neighboring Palestinians.
Besides, a Palestinian man from the Old City of occupied Jerusalem was forced to demolish part of his own home after he was forced to do so by the Israeli municipality to avoid paying exorbitant costs if the municipality carries out the demolition on its own.
Local sources said Othman Kaljawi was forced to demolish a room that he had annexed to his house after the Israeli municipality issued a destruction order against it under the pretext it was constructed without a permit. He added that the man had no choice but to demolish the room to avoid paying about $15,000 in demolition costs to the Israeli municipality.
Kaljawi said that he built the room four years ago in order to accommodate the growth of his 7-member family.
