Six apartments turned to rubble… Self-demolition policy displaces the Halwani family in Beit Hanina
In a painful scene repeated in Jerusalem neighborhoods, the Halawani family was forced on Sunday to self-demolish their residential building in the town of Beit Hanina, north of Jerusalem, following a decision issued by the occupation municipality. This was to avoid paying hefty fines and penalties that could include imprisonment.
The building, built in 2000, housed 30 family members, including the elderly and the sick. Six apartments were demolished before the eyes of their residents, after the occupation municipality gave them until early August 2025 to implement the demolition order, or else its crews and equipment would forcibly carry it out. The family will bear the costs of the demolition, which could amount to tens of thousands of shekels, in addition to the prison sentence for its members.
Jihad Halwani, a member of the family, said: "We have lived here for more than twenty years, and we have invested everything we own in this house. We have tried repeatedly to license it and submitted all the required paperwork and fees, but the municipality has always refused. Instead of licensing, they have imposed accumulated fines on us, totaling 260,000 shekels, the latest of which is a new fine of 15,000 shekels. Today, we are demolishing our own home so we don't have to pay the municipality for the demolition or face imprisonment."
Self-demolition has become a recurring policy in Jerusalem, where the occupation municipality forces Palestinian families to carry out the demolitions themselves to avoid hefty fines.
About two weeks ago, the family began emptying the entire contents of their apartments, leading to the self-demolition, forcing them to abandon their homes to protect themselves from Israeli sanctions.
