JERUSALEM _ Palestine News Network
Bulldozers and mechanisms of Israeli occupation demolished on Wednesday 20 commercial shops in the northern Jerusalem of Shu´fat, under the pretext of building without a permit.
Since Tuesday morning, Israeli occupation bulldozers have begun a massive mass demolition of a number of shops in the Shu´fat refugee camp, after giving them a 12-hour start in demolition and giving them demolition notices about 20 different shops on the main street of the camp.
Other merchants in the region feared that the operation would be a prelude to a wider operation to unload the entrance of the camp from all shops.
According to the official agency "WAFA ", the destruction and demolition carried out by the Israeli occupation bulldozers are taking place amid a heavy military siege imposed by the occupying forces on the perimeter of the area, as well as the closure of the military checkpoint near the entrance of the camp in front of citizens ´ vehicles, amid widespread deployment of Israeli soldiers, while still Stress the Master of the situation in the camp.
For his part, a member of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), head of the refugee affairs Department Ahmed Abu Houli, demolished 20 shops in Shu´fat camp, demolishing them within 12 hours, under the pretext of unlicensed construction.
"The Jerusalem occupation municipality declared war on Shuafat camp by starting to demolish 20 shops in the camp under illegal pretexts under the pretext of unlicensed construction, in implementation of its racist plan to change the camp´s monuments to serve the plan of the mayor of the occupation," Abu Houli said in a press release issued today. Earlier in Jerusalem, Nir Barakat, which included ending the definition of Shu´fat camp as a refugee camp, as well as ending the work of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in the city and shutting down its service institutions ".
He added: The demolition of shops is an update of previous unannounced actions carried out by the Israeli occupation municipality in Shu´fat camp to impose facts on the ground as an entry point for the termination of UNRWA and the status of the camp. Relocation of refugees in the camp, according to this change in identity cards, as well as heavy taxation of camp shops and traffic violations on drivers to overburden them and push them to leave the camp towards the West Bank.
He noted that the Shu´fat camp since the Israeli occupation of the city of Jerusalem, which is in the Israeli targeting department, has turned it into a large refugee prison, surrounded by settlements and insulating walls.
Abu Houli said that the Israeli targeting of the camp was a serious, deliberate and systematic crime in the policy of ethnic cleansing practised by the occupying forces in the city of Jerusalem and the extension of its plot of sabotage targeting the camp and the refugees living there, which is estimated to number approximately 21,000 refugees Palestinians, along with some 80,000 Palestinian refugees living in the vicinity of the camp, stressed that the policy of demolishing shops and homes in the camp would not undermine the resolve of the Palestinian refugees, and the Palestinian refugees would remain the spearhead in the face of Israeli plans and projects designed to eliminate The camps as an entry point to liquidate their right to return to their homes from which they were abandoned in 1948.
Abu Houli warned against the continued Israeli targeting of the Shu´fat camp in Jerusalem, which will push the area toward escalation.
Abu Houli called on our people to confront the racist Israeli aggression and to stand up to these serious crimes against the Palestinian presence, stressing that the Department of Refugee Affairs will work to strengthen the resilience of our refugee families in the Shu´fat camp to the frenzied war led by the occupation municipality against them.
Abu Houli called on the international community to hold Israel, the occupying Power, accountable for its crimes against our Palestinian people, to provide international protection to it and to compel it to abide by the rules of international law, to stop its racist and racial practices towards our Palestinian people and to recognize the rights of our people. Established by international legality, enabling it to embody its sovereignty, independence and statehood on the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital, and the return of Palestinian refugees to their homes in accordance with resolution 194.
