The building of the Al-Rajai family, “Sawahra”, was turned into rubble and scattered stones, after they were forced to demolish it under the pretext of building without a permit.
‘The house of a lifetime, with its memories of the past and hopes for the future,’ was demolished by its owners, by decision of the occupation municipality, after 12 years of licensing attempts and court procedures.
The owner of the building, Al-Maqdisi Atallah, explained that the building consists of 3 floors and includes 5 residential apartments, and approximately 50 people live in it.
He added that the occupation municipality issued the first demolition decision in 2007, and since then there have been procedures to freeze and postpone demolition, and attempts to license existing construction, until the final demolition decision was issued last month.
The young man, Atallah, explained that he had to carry out the demolition with his own hands in order to avoid paying and imposing new fines on him, ‘demolition fees’ for municipa
l crews and vehicles.
He pointed out that he paid tens of thousands of shekels over the past years to the municipality and the courts and to follow up on the building’s file, in the hope of licensing it.
Over the past few days, the family has emptied the contents of the apartments and continues to search for homes to live in.
As for the children of the families, they began inspecting the building, looking for their rooms among the rubble
Source: Maan News Agency