Along with the constant violations of the ceasefire in Gaza, home demolitions are continuing apace in East Jerusalem. In Silwan, a Palestinian neighborhood south of the Old City, the destruction does not come in the form of bombing, but as a routine administrative procedure.
On December 22, shortly after dawn, Israeli authorities razed a thirteen-apartment building in the Wadi Qaddum neighborhood. After sealing off the area and cutting off utilities, bulldozers left about a hundred people homeless, forcing some to watch the destruction amid arrests and violence.
The official justification is always the same: a lack of building permits. However, in East Jerusalem, obtaining such authorization is almost impossible. Since 1967, less than 13 percent of the territory has been designated for Palestinian construction; zoning plans exclude entire neighborhoods, and applications are systematically rejected. In this context, building without a license is not a violation but a vital necessity. This makes urban planning itself into a colonial technology that decides who can stay and who must disappear.
In Silwan, uncertainty is not a side effect of Israeli policy but the form of occupation. “Demolitions are the norm here,” explains one resident. Bulldozers and administrative orders shape daily life, producing a constant precarity that makes it impossible to plan for the future. It is violence in the form of planning.
It all responds to a decade-old principle: maximum land for Israelis, with minimum Palestinians. This is not a slogan but a political rationale that guides each instance of confiscation. “The methods change, but not the strategy,” confirms a woman from Al-Bustan. “They want a settler majority.”
Wadi Qaddum is no exception. On December 30, another house was demolished in Al-Bustan. Officials, escorted by police, forced the children out of their beds at dawn. A few hours later, only a sleeping cat…
Auteur: Luisa Canciello
