AL-WALAJA, Palestine: Dabbing away tears, Ghadeer Al-Atrash stood before her bulldozed home in a Palestinian village abutting Zionist settlements, a fate feared by hundreds of villagers as the Zionist entity ramps up demolitions of Palestinian homes.
Destruction of homes built without Zionist-issued permits, which campaigners say are nearly impossible for Palestinians to obtain due to the Zionist entity’s restrictive planning policy, have roiled occupied territories for years.
But campaigners say surge in demolitions illustrates the wider impact of the current three-month Zionist assault, on Palestinian communities beyond the Gaza Strip. Atrash, a divorced mother-of-two, scrounged together about 200,000 shekels ($54,000) to build a house in Al-Walaja, a village carved into hillside terraces and olive farms that is divided between the Zionist-occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem.
"My son dropped out of college. We saved money, borrowed money,” Atrash, 43, told AFP, standing in front of concrete debris from her house that was demolished last February. "I had built it to get away from exhaustion and misery, for stability in my life.”
Dozens of Al-Walaja families with pending demolition orders fear the same fate. Since Oct 7, the government has accelerated demolitions in Palestinian areas, in what campaigners call collective punishment that threatens to inflame already high tensions.
Zionist demolitions due to a lack of permits have caused the displacement of 444 Palestinians in Area C — West Bank territory under full Zionist control — and annexed east Jerusalem, according to the United Nations humanitarian agency (OCHA). This represents a 36 percent increase in displacement since the beginning of 2023, OCHA said.
The Al-Walaja part impacted by demolitions falls under east Jerusalem, where the activist group Ir Amim said destructions jumped more than 50 percent in the three months since Oct 7 compared to the rest of 2023.
‘Anxiety and fear’
"Whether I’m sitting, sleeping or eating, I keep thinking about what they are going to do to us and our house,” said Mahmoud Abu Khiarah, a 28-year-old construction worker and father-of-three who built a house in 2017 on ancestral land in Al-Walaja. "There’s anxiety and fear.”
Municipal authorities in Jerusalem redirected AFP’s request for comment to the finance ministry and COGAT, a military body responsible for civilian affairs in the Palestinian territories. Neither of them responded. The Zionist Supreme Court has stayed demolition orders for 38 houses in Al-Walaja, which has a population of about 3,000. At least six houses that are not part of the freeze, including Abu Khiarah’s, face an imminent risk, Ir Amim said.
The Zionist entity’s relentless ground and air military campaign in Gaza has killed more than 22,835 people, mostly women and children, according to the territory’s health ministry. The entity claims the bombardment is aimed at destroying Hamas after the Palestinian resistance group attacked southern Zionist communities and military bases on Oct 7. Around 1,140 people, mostly civilians, died in the attack and subsequent Zionist military operation aimed at regaining control of communities targeted by Hamas.
Fueling fears of a broader escalation, the jump in demolitions comes amid rising settler violence, military raids and movement restrictions facing Palestinians in the occupied territories. At the heart of the demolitions is what OCHA calls the Zionist entity’s "discriminatory” planning policy.
Since 1967 when the Zionist entity occupied the West Bank and annexed east Jerusalem, authorities never made a zoning plan for the Al-Walaja area under its jurisdiction, making it impossible for residents to build legally. "Residents have to choose between uprooting themselves from Al-Walaja, where they were born and their families live, to building without a permit and risking demolitions,” Aviv Tatarsky, an Ir Amim researcher, told AFP.
‘Live on streets’
The Zionist entity claims the whole of Jerusalem as its undivided capital. Many Palestinians view demolitions as an attempt to push them out of annexed east Jerusalem. The sprawling Jewish settlements of Gilo and Har Gilo — illegal under international law — have already encroached on Al-Walaja land.
The village is also hemmed in by the kilometers-long West Bank barrier — built by the Zionist entity in the early 2000s against Palestinian violence — which has cut off residents from pastureland and freshwater springs.
Many Palestinians with demolition orders say they choose to tear down their own homes to evade high government levies and the cost of renting the municipality’s bulldozers. "(The Zionist entity), as the occupying power, is obligated to protect the Palestinians,” Greg Puley, acting head of OCHA’s office for occupied Palestinian territories, told AFP. "Palestinians must have access to a fair and equitable planning system.”
Al-Walaja’s residents have taken it upon themselves to raise funds to develop a zoning plan with the help of a Zionist planner. The detailed proposal, seen by AFP, was submitted to Zionist planning authorities in early October.
In early December, the Supreme Court granted a request by authorities for up to four months to review it, legal records show. While they do so, the threat of demolitions persists. "If they demolish our house we will live on the streets,” Abu Khiarah said, cradling his toddler in his arms.