Israel destroys Palestinian commercial stores in Beit Hanina

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC)-- The Israeli occupation authority (IOA) on Tuesday demolished a Palestinian building of six commercial stores in Beit Hanina town east of occupied Jerusalem at the pretext of unlicensed construction. Jerusalemite citizens Taleb Idris and Osama Malhi said the IOA had refused to give them a license for the building and ordered them along with the other storekeepers to have their stores knocked down by next July 15, but the Israeli bulldozers surprisingly came on Tuesday to carry out the demolition. Idris noted that about 22 Jerusalemite families would suffer after their only means of livelihood were destroyed. "The Zionist authorities aim to throw us out of Jerusalem, and I can find no other explanation why they violated the decision to delay the demolition and did not give us a chance to obtain a license for the building, especially after we have paid all the fines imposed on us by the municipality," Idris stated on behalf of his fellow storekeepers. In a related context, the Jerusalem center for social and economic rights warned that Israel intends to carry out a large-scale demolition campaign, in cooperation with the civil unit of its army, throughout the Palestinian neighborhoods and towns of Jerusalem. The center said in a report that the demolition process that happened on Tuesday in Sala neighborhood in Al-Makbar Mount was the beginning of this campaign. It also that a Palestinian family of 30 individuals was told to leave their house in Shuafat town northeast of Jerusalem as a prelude to demolishing it, while a number of Israeli bulldozers gathered on the bridge of the French Hill waiting for imminent demolition orders.