Distribution of Administrative Demolition Orders in the neighborhood of Wadi Hilweh
A joint force between the Jerusalem Municipality’s staff and Israeli Police raided the town of Silwan on Sunday morning and distributed administrative demolition orders on a number of houses in the neighborhood of Wadi Hilweh. According to the preliminary information available to Wadi Hilweh Information Center, 4 administrative demolition orders have been distributed and were hung on the outside doors of the houses after being photographed, knowing that the distribution process was random as one demolition order was hung on a house that was built tens of years before the occupation of Jerusalem and the residents have not renovated the house or made any additions to it since it belongs to the Islamic Awqaf. A children’s playground that belongs to Creative Mada Center was raided and pictures and complete measurements were taken. During the distribution of the demolition orders, the police prevented the children from going to their homes and attempted to arrest a photographer for monitoring the distribution of orders and provocation of the residents. . Wadi Hilweh Information Center indicates the availability of 3 types of demolition orders that the Jerusalem municipality distributes on the residents of east Jerusalem. The most dangerous one is the administrative order which enables the municipality’s staff to demolish the property in 24 hours; this is becoming the most common order nowadays and is usually distributed in the areas targeted by the Nature and Parks Authority. Another type is the “Judicial Order” which is issued by one of the Israeli courts and is postponed several times. The last one is the “land cleaning” which has been used in the past two years and allows the municipality to bulldoze wide areas of land under a variety of pretexts.
