Israeli Occupation Municipality demolish four residential apartments in At-Tur town in Jerusalem

September 28, 2016

The occupation municipality’s bulldozers demolished on September 27, 2016 two residential buildings owned by Abulhawa family At-Tur town east of the Old City of Jerusalem. The buildings were established in 2010 and are owned by four brothers from Abulhawa family. Two apartments are reported leased by other families. The following table shows information about the affected citizens:

The son of the residence, Mahmoud Tayseer Abualhawa, told Land Research Center the following:

"  My father and uncles decided to build four apartments (two buildings) on a three dunum plot we own in 2010. The intention was to reside in the building and invest some of the apartments  but the occupation municipality refused to grant us a building permit on the claim that the area is classified as National Park, where construction is not allowed. Despite all, we finished the buildings in 2011. It was when the occupation municipality served us stop-work order on the same claim and imposed a fine of 300,000 NIS on the two buildings (75,000 for each apartment). At time, we sought the occupation municipality, which in its term told us that since the location is classified as National Park, our lands became under the control of Israel".

He added:

" In 2013, the municipality court ruled the demolition of the apartments. It is when we hired attorney Hussein Ghannam to follow up on the case. The attorney didn’t accomplish anything despite being paid quit a lot of money. Thus, we hired two Israeli lawyers to take the lead. On August 2016, the court ruled the demolition of the two buildings and gave a 21 day deadline to evacuate them. We filed a plea to the Magistrate court to delay the demolition for six months. Demolition was delayed until February 2017 as a result. On September 27, 2016, we were surprised of Israel policemen and dozers raiding the area. The force declared the area inaccessible and evacuated the residents without letting them take anything out of the residences.

We informed the officer responsible of the operation that we obtained a delay on the demolition order but he refused to listen.  The demolition operation was then carried out and lasted from 4:00 at dawn until 9:30 in the morning".

It is reported that the attacked plot (three dunums) is located within the municipality plan to establish a cable car that links At-Tur with the Wailing wall. The plan will finish in 2020, meaning that the presence of Arab Muslims will be fought so that the city will be taken over.

Israeli Authorities Revived the “Cable car” project in Jerusalem city

On the 16th of February 2016, the Israeli newspaper “Haaretz” revealed that the so called “Jerusalem Development Authority” and the “Israeli Municipality of Jerusalem” revived the project to establish “cable car” in Jerusalem city. Noted that the cable care system it’s not a new project, where the first time the Israeli Authorities revealed the plan was in the year of 2013, where they hired a French company named “SAFEGE”, but after two years of involvement in the project during the feasibility-study stage, the French company decided to forgo any further participation for political reasons

Nowadays, the Israeli Authorities hired a new French company (CNA) specializing in the construction of cable cars.

According to the plan, the cable care is expected to pass near sensitive sites, including the Old City and Al Aqsa mosque. The plan is to have the car running through four stations: near the Old Train Station at the northern end of Emek Refaim Street in the German Colony neighborhood, outside the Old City by the Dung Gate, and near the Seven Arches Hotel on the Mount of Olives, and at the Garden of Gethsemane. The cost of the project is estimated as NIS 125 million ($31 million), and the length of the cable care is about 2.5 km.  The cable-car system will transport tourists and visitors (an average of 6000 an hour) to and from the so-called Western Wall (Al-Buraq Wall).

Prepared by
 The Land Research Center
LRC