LONDON: Israeli authorities demolished a residential building in the Arab-majority town of Kafr Qasim on Thursday, citing unlicensed construction. Palestinian citizens of Israel said the situation reflected an escalating housing crisis in their communities.
Arab towns in Israel have faced restrictions on the expansion of their municipal boundaries, forcing many residents to build homes to accommodate growing populations, the Palestinian Wafa news agency reported.
This week, Israeli authorities also reactivated demolition orders for 14 buildings in the Arab village of Deir Al-Asad in the Galilee, with building permit violations as the stated reason.
The demolitions will affect dozens of families from Israel’s Arab minority; about 2.1 million Palestinians are citizens of Israel, 21 percent of the total population. Deir Al-Asad has more than 12,000 residents, while Kafr Qasim is home to 32,232 people.
The Israeli president, Isaac Herzog, visited Deir Al-Asad on Wednesday to meet its representatives and others from the nearby towns of Bi’ina, Nahf and Majd al-Krum for discussions on efforts to tackle widespread crime, another issue that is affecting the safety of the Arab community.
Demolition policies targeting the homes of Palestinians in northern and central Israel are less common than those in the occupied West Bank, where last year at least 1,267 buildings were demolished, some of them in East Jerusalem.
However, Palestinians Bedouins in southern Israel’s Negev region have suffered from decades of insufficient municipal services, including lack of access to water and electricity. Last year, they also faced losing their homes as Israeli authorities demolished 5,742 buildings in the arid region, ruling them illegal.
