JERUSALEM (AA): Israeli authorities on Saturday forced a Palestinian family to demolish its own house in occupied East Jerusalem, the family members told Anadolu Agency.

Israel had issued an order to demolish the two-apartment house in the Silwan neighborhood, south of the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

“Israeli authorities gave us until Dec. 10 to demolish our house,” Murad Hashmyeh, family member, told Anadolu Agency.

He said 14 people live in the house — half of them children — which was built 20 years ago.

According to Hashmyeh, Israel threatened to charge the family for the demolition.

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.

According to Daniel Seidemann of the NGO Terrestrial Jerusalem, “since 1967, the Government of Israel has directly engaged in the construction of 55,000 units for Israelis in East Jerusalem; in contrast, fewer than 600 units have been built for Palestinians in East Jerusalem, the last of which were built 40 years ago. So much for (Jerusalem Mayor Nir) Barkat’s claim ‘we build for everyone.'”

Israel occupied East Jerusalem during the 1967 Middle East war. It later annexed the city in 1980, claiming Jerusalem as the unified capital of the self-proclaimed Jewish state – a move never recognized by the international community.

International law views the West Bank and East Jerusalem as “occupied territories” and considers all Israeli settlement building on the land to be illegal.

Palestinians accuse Israel of waging an aggressive campaign to “Judaize” Jerusalem with the aim of wiping away its Arab and Islamic identity and driving out its Palestinian inhabitants.

Additional report from Ma’an News Agency

[Archive photo: Palestinian family forced by Israeli authorities to demolish own home in Ras al Amud neighbourhood of Jerusalem on 8 December  2018. Photographer: Mostafa Alkharouf/AA]