SILWAN (Al Jazeera) – About 84 Palestinian homes in the Wadi Yasoul neighborhood of Silwan in occupied East Al-Quds are facing demolition to make way for enlarging a Zionist park in the area.
Fakhri Abu Diab, a member of the Silwan Lands Defence Committee, said the threats against homes in Silwan are part of an attempt to target neighborhoods in the “Holy Basin” where the occupying regime is forging ahead with the theme park.
Some 600 Palestinians living there will be rendered homeless if a Zionist regime court rules in favor of the demolition.
Diab said that if the Wadi Yasoul expropriation went ahead, it would be the second-largest forced displacement of residents in Al-Quds since the 2019 forced displacement in Sur Baher’s Wadi al-Hummus neighborhood when more than 10 residential buildings were demolished, making hundreds homeless.
Forced displacement, or unlawful transfer of civilians in occupied territory, violates the Fourth Geneva Convention and constitutes a war crime under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.
Diab said urgent international action is needed to stop the regime’s demolitions in Wadi Yasoul, which lies just south of Al-Quds’ Old City.
Ziad Qawar, the lawyer representing the affected families, told Al Jazeera it is unclear when the regime’s district court may issue a ruling over the case, but that it could be in the coming days or weeks.
Qawar appealed to the district court on November 18 against an earlier municipal court ruling that greenlighted the demolition in Wadi Yasoul, home to more than 1,000 Palestinian residents and comprises some 310 dunums (31 hectares).
In 2019, the Israeli-controlled Al-Quds municipality demolished 12 residential buildings, and a horse stable, in Wadi Yasoul, displacing more than 70 residents.
The owners of the threatened homes, and other buildings, were given repeated notices by the regime authorities over the years that the buildings would be destroyed because they were built without ‘permits’.
NGOs and human rights organizations have repeatedly released reports on how regime authorities issue very few building permits to Palestinian residents, despite extreme overcrowding, while illegal Zionist settlement construction is simultaneously encouraged with economic incentives.