Israeli troops demolished a butcher shop in Silwan and a home in the Ras al-Amud neighborhood on 29 June. The bulldozers made two boys and their parents homeless and destroyed the income sources of nine people.
This attack on Palestinian families, their homes and livelihoods is part of Israel’s violent colonization of occupied East Jerusalem, particularly the Silwan neighborhood.
When Palestinians in the area protested the demolitions, occupation forces attacked them with tear gas and rubber-coated steel bullets, injuring at least 19 and detaining nine.
Israel has intensified its colonization in Silwan in recent weeks – but methodical conquest of the neighborhood goes back decades.
The Israeli-controlled Jerusalem municipality announced in 2005 that it intended to demolish 88 Palestinian homes in Silwan’s al-Bustan quarter and began issuing demolition orders.