The Demolition of Ali Salem Moussa’s House in Al’ Khader on the 14th of April 2010

ImageThe stove is standing outside under the sky, next to it a washing machine and in the background a big white tent. We are sitting in what till yesterday used to be the living room of the Moussa family, around us nothing but the little remains of the outside walls.



The Background:

The Moussa family owned 4 houses on their property where different parts of the family lived. It is actually not really appropriate to speak of houses since the buildings mostly just include one room, a bathroom and a kitchen, all constructed with simple concrete blocks and a tin roof on top. In 2002 the first of them got demolished the when Israel’s Government started to build the Road 60 to connect the settlements like Efrat directly to Jerusalem and to each other. In this time the family lost a lot of their land to the wall which is supposed to protect the street now stretching through the valley underneath their land.

The Israeli Government came back on the 12th of February 2004 and demolished not only the rebuilt house but along with it two more. In this time it was snowing which made the whole situation even harder to suddenly stand on your land without having a roof above you to protect you from the outside conditions.

Since just one house remained on their property which was not demolished, the whole family had to live together with 17 people in one room. In 2006 Israel’s High Court decided to freeze demolitions on the Moussa family land.

ImageOn the 14th of April, 2010 at around 10:00 am the bulldozers rolled into the town of Al’ Khader and up the hill to the property of the Moussa family.When they arrived, the administrator was asked by Ali Moussa’s son to show the papers with the order for the demolition of this house but in the end he never saw them. At this time their lawyer was already on his way to Al’ Khader with the decision by Israel’s High Court, declaring that the demolition is not legal.

Everything went really fast, the family begged the soldiers to at least wait till the lawyer arrives but they already started their work. The lawyer arrived but not one of the present soldiers paid attention to the court decision and within 5 minutes the whole house was destroyed.

So for the third time all that is left are pieces of tin roof lying around, debris, and a family without shelter. The 8 year old son of the family came home from school just after the bulldozers had left again and he simply did not understand why his home suddenly was completely vanished. He was running around crying and asking his father and his brothers why but nobody could give him an understandable answer.

Ali says that he does not even care anymore, he got kind of used to this. The abnormal became normal here for him and it seems like the experience of having lost his home now three times broke the fear of this loss inside him. He stated clearly: “This is our land and we are going to build up our home again and again on our ground because we know that this is our right.”

On the other side of the valley our home rebuilding project for the Salah’s family is about to get finished and to watch that process while standing in the ruins of another just demolished home seems ridiculous but hopefully it will be possible to rebuilt this simple house within the next days with the support of Al’ Khader’s municipality.

Source: www.holylandtrust.org

Israel orders demolition of Christian homes in Old Jerusalem

I've been saying for the past three years that Israeli settlement expansions kick Christians out of their homes, so why don't more Christians in America speak out against it? Here is an article I found on my friend Stephen Sizer's blog:

Today the Jerusalem Inter-Church Centre has learned of new house demolition orders against at least four Christian families living inside the old city of Jerusalem where local Churches accommodate more than 500 homes for Palestinian families.

The Greek Orthodox Patriarchate and the Catholic Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land own most of these homes. Churches are already facing difficulty in attaining renovation permits and expansion is almost impossible. One of the Church lawyers confirms that even the Churches already have court cases with the municipality of Jerusalem on similar issues.

One of the Church leaders bitterly criticize the different treatment given to Jewish settlers inside the city wall where they are granted permits for expanding and renovating the properties under their control. In these four cases in particular, the families were addressed individually by the Israeli municipal authorities and court cases are underway. One of the defendants, Sami Wakileh, recalls the Judge telling him, “It is a waste of your precious time. Do not dream of receiving any permit…”

This means that the existing home will be demolished sooner or later. Sami's house is actually an old building that he leased from the Church and spent over a hundred thousand dollars to fix and renovate. In another case, Bassam Ayyash, who rents a 50 square meter apartment from the Greek Orthodox Church inside the Patriarchate's convent has also received a demolition order claiming that this 50 square meter apartment is an expansion to his home! Bassam is puzzled with the persistence of the authorities in not agreeing to come and investigate the matter when he confirms, “My only home is the 50 square meter apartment."

Last month, ten Christian families in Beit Hanina, a suburb area of North East Jerusalem, received demolition orders for their six year old apartments in the Al-Sunbula building. Half of the building was licensed originally while permits to formulate the rest were not given. Now all the inhabitants face the same fate if the municipality carries out its threats. Housing inside Jerusalem has been a burden for all Palestinian families. With an extremely difficult process and impossible permit system coupled with the high cost of living in Jerusalem, building or having one’s own apartment is becoming a dream.

The Christian community struggles with the family re-unification system and residency rights restrictions imposed by the Israeli Authorities. When one Jerusalemite cannot live together with his or her spouse who is a West Banker under one roof inside Jerusalem, the ultimate effect is that less and less couples decide to get married. Father Ibrahim Faltas, the Roman Catholic Parish priest of Jerusalem, declared last week that the number of Catholic marriages this year is almost half of what they experienced during the previous years. New Jerusalem Christian families are more and more forced to leave their home city either to the neighboring West Bank or emigrate if they have the chance.

Source: Yusef Daher, Executive Secretary
Jerusalem Inter-Church Centre - JIC P.O.Box 741, Jerusalem 91000
Tel :+972 (0)2 627 4534, 628 9858 (Ext. 105) Mobile 050 5545 179

Posted orginally at http://www.stephensizer.blogspot.com,