Peace Centre demolished

Dismay at the demolition of a Peace Centre on the edge of Jerusalem by the Israeli army

Israeli and Palestinian peace groups expressed dismay that a Peace Centre on the edge of Jerusalem has been demolished by the Israeli army. The centre, Beit Arabiya, was destroyed in the early hours of Thursday 1 November.  It was the sixth occasion on which the building had been demolished. It was last rebuilt in July by about thirty volunteers from Palestine, Israel and elsewhere. They included Muslims, Jews and Christians who said they ‘refuse to be enemies’. They were organised by the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD).

Salim Shawamreh, who worked at the centre, said he was struck by grief when arriving at the site of the building to see it destroyed again. Standing in the rubble, he told the Friend: ‘It’s not a just concrete they are demolishing.’ He explained: ‘Our human rights have been violated by this occupation.’

The majority of tiles had been individually smashed and the bathroom pipes twisted to make them unusable. The bodies of two stray dogs were lying in the rubble, apparently killed as the building collapsed. According to neighbours, the destruction took less than three hours.

The Israeli authorities said that the building had been erected without a permit. Their critics, including ICAHD and Christian Aid, say that ninety-four per cent of Palestinian applications for building permits are rejected. The application process costs around $5,000.

Christian Aid’s William Bell told the Friend: ‘Israel makes it notoriously difficult to obtain the permits required to build, leaving many with little choice to build without one’. ICAHD have records of over 27,000 house demolitions in Palestine. Salim Shawamreh asked people around the world to support peaceful campaigns against the demolitions. ‘We need help to get out of this,’ he said.

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