The Israeli municipality of West Jerusalem on Tuesday compelled a local Palestinian family from Silwan, a neighborhood of Jerusalem, to demolish three commercial stores of its own, local sources told WAFA.

WAFA correspondent said the municipality ordered the family to demolish the said stores, under the pretext of construction without a permit. The stores have a total area of about 75 square meters.

According to the UN monitoring group OCHA, from February 23 to March 7, 2016 Israel destroyed or dismantled 85 structures in Area C and East Jerusalem for lack of Israeli-issued building permits, including 17 structures provided as humanitarian assistance, displacing 96 Palestinians, including 41 children, and affecting 255 others.

According to OCHA statistics, the number of structures demolished since the start of 2016 is already 70 percent of the demolitions recorded in all of 2015, while the number of people displaced is nearly 68 percent of the total 2015 figure.

Statistics also indicate that the number of donor-funded structures demolished (120) has already exceeded the 2015 total (108).

Israel has severely curtailed Palestinians’ ability to legally construct new houses or expand existing houses in East Jerusalem and West Bank Area C, denying them permits since 1967 and prompting them to embark on construction without obtaining construction permits.

Source: WAFA