Khaberni - With additional measures, the occupation tightens the grip on Al-Bustan neighborhood, in the town of Silwan, south of Al-Aqsa Mosque, in a time when the town experiences demolitions and evictions of houses for settlers.
Recently, the occupation police hindered the visit of a delegation of foreign diplomats and politicians, including Knesset member Ahmad Tibi, last Thursday, to the neighborhood, which the residents saw as an implicit message that nothing protects the neighborhood's residents from demolition.
As the delegation reached Al-Bustan neighborhood, members of the occupation police arrived and attempted to prevent it from proceeding. During this, Tibi said: "We want the world to see with its own eyes what is happening; they tried to prevent us but ultimately, we passed."
About this visit, the Jerusalemite activist Murad Abu Shafa said that a large delegation of diplomats from many countries around the world, headed by Knesset member Ahmad Tibi, reached the neighborhood despite prevention attempts, adding that Batan Al-Hawa neighborhood suffers from being taken over by settlers and its people being displaced and its children being evicted, "We suffer in Al-Bustan neighborhood from our houses being demolished and our people and our children being displaced," according to Al-Jazeera.
He pointed out that the occupation police and army along with the municipal crews and their bulldozers are present daily in the neighborhood, either for demolition, confiscation, or land grating in order to exacerbate the residents' suffering, including women, men, and children.
Despite these daily violations, this activist affirmed his right to remain on his land by saying: "We are an inseparable part of Jerusalem, and we must not be forcefully removed from Jerusalem."
Meanwhile, the researcher on Jerusalem affairs, Fakhri Abu Diab, commented on the attempt to hinder the tour by saying, "The occupation is always working to hide the truth, and I think that's what we are doing now, as diplomats and consuls are here to find out what's going on and to reveal the truth in front of the international community to perhaps pressure the occupation and force it to be under the law."
In her turn, the Israeli journalist and activist against the occupation, Angela Godfrey, said that there is no legal way to prevent demolition operations because the issue is political, but attorneys will continue their efforts and are thinking of approaching the Israeli Supreme Court despite the fact their success chances are very slim.
The occupation municipal teams raided Al-Bustan neighborhood before organizing the tour in it, and their bulldozers started land clearing, and the same teams raided the neighborhood again after the tour ended and started photographing the demolished houses in the neighborhood and other houses that had demolition orders issued against them.
The northern edge of Al-Bustan neighborhood is located 300 meters south of Al-Aqsa Mosque's southern wall, and its area is 70 dunams (a dunam equals 1,000 square meters), and according to Fakhri Abu Diab, 1,500 people live in this neighborhood, though their number has recently decreased by between 70 and 80 people due to the fierce demolition campaign targeting it.
The occupation authorities claim that Al-Bustan neighborhood was "a garden for King David" and thus, they want to level its homes to the ground so it can extend to it the "national park" located in the adjacent Silwan neighborhood, which is managed by the settler organization "Elad."
