{"id":180561,"date":"2021-03-08T12:01:15","date_gmt":"2021-03-08T12:01:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=180561"},"modified":"2024-06-12T21:24:39","modified_gmt":"2024-06-12T20:24:39","slug":"for-the-sixth-time-israel-razes-a-disabled-palestinians-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2021\/03\/for-the-sixth-time-israel-razes-a-disabled-palestinians-home\/","title":{"rendered":"For the Sixth Time, Israel Razes a Disabled Palestinian’s Home"},"content":{"rendered":"
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There\u2019s no way for Palestinians to build legally on their own land in Isawiyah. Almost all the construction there has been illegal, but the Jerusalem Municipality has chosen to single out this man.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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Khatham Abu Riala in front of what used to be his home in Isawiyah.
Credit: Alex Levac<\/p><\/div>\n

4 Mar 2021 – <\/em>A disabled man watches as a bulldozer demolishes his home. Just a few dozen meters separate him from the structure, whose second story is now collapsing into itself. The bulldozer batters the walls of the stone building \u2013 which was still under construction \u2013 pounding and smashing, toppling yet another wall and destroying another room on this upper floor, transforming it into a heap of rubble. Its owner, who invested all his savings in the construction, watches the devastation from his wheelchair, surrounded by Border Police troops who appear as menacing and violent as ever.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not the first time he\u2019s witnessing this scenario; that happened in 1999. Nor is it the second, third or fourth time: Israeli authorities have demolished his home six times. Maybe that\u2019s why only a handful of residents in Isawiyah, the East Jerusalem neighborhood whose residents make a point of calling it a \u201cvillage\u201d \u2013 as if to recall good times that will never return \u2013 have turned up to be with him in his distress.<\/p>\n

Monday, this week, Isawiyah. Khatham Abu Riala has had to use a wheelchair since the second demolition of his home, on February 4, 2009. While protesting it, he stumbled and fell from the roof of the building, just before it was razed to the ground. The plunge of seven meters (23 feet) onto rocky ground injured his spinal cord, leaving him paralyzed from the waist down \u2013 and unemployed. Before his injury he had been a driver for the Superbus firm; he\u2019s wearing the company coat today to protect himself against the bracing Jerusalem cold. He\u2019d also done a stint as a truck driver in the port of Ashdod.<\/p>\n

Abu Riala\u2019s disability stirred no compassion in the corridors of Jerusalem\u2019s city hall. Its officials are also indifferent to the fact that there\u2019s no way for Palestinians to build legally in Isawiyah. Almost all the building that\u2019s gone on there since 1967 is illegal, but the Jerusalem Municipality has apparently chosen to focus its efforts onto this man in particular. It has been waging an unrelenting battle against Abu Riala, who for 22 years has been trying to build a home for himself on land that he owns, abutting his parents\u2019 house \u2013 22 years during which the municipality still hasn\u2019t approved an updated master plan for Isawiyah and is effectively banning new construction there.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople get married. Children are born. Where will we live? Are we all supposed to live in one room?\u201d Abu Riala asks. \u201cIt\u2019s the task of the city to prepare a master plan. They tell me: Go to Beit Hanina [another East Jerusalem neighborhood that\u2019s further out, en route to Ramallah]. But I have land here. This is where I was born. Why should I go to Beit Hanina if I have property here?\u201d<\/p>\n

The last, fifth, time his home was razed by private contractors working on behalf of the city of Jerusalem was in December 2019. In May 2020 he began rebuilding, until the authorities warned him to stop. Since then, the threat of demolition hung over the dwelling, whose construction had was almost been completed.<\/p>\n

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The rubble in Isawiyah. Credit: Alex Levac<\/p><\/div>\n

Clearly, we\u2019re not talking here an Israeli settlement or settler outpost, or even about a new neighborhood for ultra-Orthodox Jews from America. This is an occupied Palestinian village.<\/p>\n