At least 60,000 of the 225,000 Palestinians in annexed east Jerusalem risk having their homes demolished by the Israeli authorities because they were built without permits, a UN agency said on Friday. To date, approximately 1,500 demolition orders have been issued in east Jerusalem, which if implemented, would leave about 9,000 people homeless, almost half of them children, the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in a report.
Palestinians say the demolitions are an attempt to push them out of the city, but municipal authorities insist they simply follow the law and raze houses built without the necessary permits. OCHA said that at least 28 percent of Palestinian homes in east Jerusalem have been built without the Israeli permits, which residents say are nearly impossible to obtain. "As a result, at least 60,000 out of 225,000 Palestinians in east Jerusalem are at risk of having their homes demolished by the Israeli authorities," OCHA said.
It said planners have earmarked only 13 percent of annexed east Jerusalem for Palestinian construction, while one third has been expropriated for settlement housing projects. About 200,000 Israeli settlers live in east Jerusalem.
The Israeli municipal authority for Jerusalem, headed since December by right-wing politician Nir Barkat, has in the past few weeks alone issued dozens of demolition orders for houses built without permits in the Arab districts of the city. The municipality rejected the allegations in the UN report and denied the figures in it, while admitting: "There is a planning crisis, not just in east Jerusalem but in the whole of Jerusalem affecting Jews as well as Muslims and Christians." "This is exactly why, for the first time in 50 years, a planning director will be nominated in the next few weeks," the municipality said in a statement.
"Mr Barkat is working for the good of all the inhabitants of Jerusalem," it added. Israeli settlements in east Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank are one of the main stumbling blocks in the moribund Middle East peace process.