Israeli forces along with the Israeli Civil Administration staff stormed the Shufat refugee camp, in occupied East Jerusalem, and delivered demolition notices to dozens of Palestinian shops, on late Tuesday.
Thaer Fasfous, spokesperson of the Fatah movement in Jerusalem, told Ma’an that the Israeli Civil Administration staff delivered demolition notices to more than 20 Palestinian-owned shops in the Shufat refugee camp.
Fasfous pointed out that the delivered notices mentioned that shop owners have 12 hours to evacuate the premises before the demolitions take place.
The notices also mentioned that the shops would be demolished under the pretext that they were built without the difficult-to-obtain Israeli permit.
Fasfous added that the shops have been built since 2007 and include clothing, groceries, bakeries, and restaurants.
Fasfous said that Israeli authorities started a demolition campaign in the Shufat refugee camp, which affects dozens of Palestinian families, who rely on economic support from these shops.
Additionally, clashes broke out among Israeli forces and Palestinians after the delivery of the demolition notices, during which Israeli forces repeatedly fired tear-gas bombs and sound bombs throughout Shufat.
Israel uses the pretext of building without a permit to carry out demolitions of Palestinian-owned homes on a regular basis.
Israel rarely grants Palestinians permits to build in East Jerusalem, though the Jerusalem municipality has claimed that compared to the Jewish population, they receive a disproportionately low number of permit applications from Palestinian communities, which also see high approval ratings.
For Jewish Israelis in occupied East Jerusalem’s illegal settlements, the planning, marketing, development, and infrastructure are funded and executed by the Israeli government. By contrast, in Palestinian neighborhoods, all the burden falls on individual families to contend with a lengthy permit application that can last several years and cost tens of thousands of dollars.
The video below shows shop owners evacuating the premises:
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All images in this article are from MNA
