BADIL Alternative Information Center 
For Immediate Release 
March 3, 1998 

The house of Sumoud camp resident, Mohammed Iazzat al-Ja’bari, in a-Ram was demolished this morning by Israeli officials.  Bulldozers, along with Israeli police, arrived at the al-Ja’bari home this morning and destroyed the 300 sq. meter house under the pretext that the three-year-old home was built without an Israeli building permit. 

Mohammed al-Ja’bari, aged 65, moved to the Sumoud tent camp after the Israeli authorities stopped paying his retirement pension following 25 years of employment with the Jerusalem municipality.  With the demolition of their Ram home today, the Sumoud tent camp has become the only home for the 8 member al-Ja’bari family whose youngest child is 10 years old.  The fate of the other 50 families in the Camp, who have been given 30 days by the Municipality to dismantle their tents and homes in conjunction with a promise by the Islamic waqf to provide additional land for the camp remains tenuous. 

The demolition of Palestinian homes is one of several practices, including the confiscation of Jerusalem residency cards and denial of family reunification, which Israeli officials use to reduce the Palestinian population in Jerusalem.  According to a map prepared for the Jerusalem Municipality there are some 2,700 Palestinian homes in Jerusalem targeted for demolition (al-Quds, 27 July 1997).  More than a 1000 additional Palestinian homes are targeted for demolition in the West Bank. 

The Lobby for Palestinian Women’s Rights in Jerusalem calls upon the international community to protest the continued demolition of Palestinian homes and other Israeli practices aimed at evicting Palestinians from Jerusalem as a means to determine the final status of the city by faxing/email:  Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, 972-2-566-4838, email: pm@pmo.gov.il; Israeli Jerusalem Mayor, 972-2-629-7997, email: jermstr@jerusalem.muni.il.  

For more information on the situation at Sumoud Camp contact the Lobby at: BADIL-Alternative Information Center, Bethlehem, tel/fax 972-2-747346, email: badil@baraka.org; Jerusalem Center for Women, tel 972-2-5747068, fax 972-2-5747069, email: JCW@palnet.com; or Palestine Human Rights Information Center, tel. 628-7076/7. 
 

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