demolitions

Last night we received a call saying that there were going to be demolitions of houses in Palestinian areas today and could we go so two of us from Hebron went to Jerusalem and then travelled out to Azzawya. When we arrived we found that the house had already been destroyed, the bulldozer had come at 5am. All we could do was document it by taking photos and talking to the people there. The father was there but the children and mother were all 'sick' - presume he meant stressed as I know I would be! It was gutting to see and it raised the question of how far we can go. If my house had been bulldozed over I doubt I would want to have people asking me questions but they were all very happy to let us take photos and ask questions . This is the second time the house has been knocked down - they were told if they paid 10,000-20,000USD it may be saved but of course they do not have that money. They had rebuilt it from the last occasion simply because they had no where else to go.

This family will now move into another house next door which other members of their family live in - the reason they had moved out is because there were too many - now 6 people with have to move into a house with similar number. The space available to them is pretty small as it was so this is going to make the situation even worse. Its pretty terrible and I felt pretty helpless. Luckily they had enough time to retrieve almost all their belongings before the house was knocked down

We then went onto another house closer to Jerusalem on the Mount of Olives to watch the demolition take place, the police would not let us anywhere near because of 'orders'. When questioning one of the soldiers pushed a journalist for no real reason, only a small push but still it is unacceptable, he was not trying to pass the soldier. That is all they normally ever say, they say its their orders, and don't talk about the morality of the situation normally. However today one police officer said before this house they knock down a Jewish house and then go onto another Jewish house, in fact a lot of the houses they knock down are Jewish. Of course vague on details and when we said we had never heard of this - one person in the group has researched this she said well i see different research. They then said we can take pictures from here.
"But we can't see the house!"
Shrug of shoulders and they walk off

Eventually we got onto the roof of another property but most of it was over. The soldiers and police who were there were all patting each other on the back and shaking hands - (job done). We again went to see the family, they were lovely - offering coffee in a neighbours house as if we had mildly inconvenienced them and they let us take photos and talk. The children were there and some of the grown men had tears in their eyes, which is a pretty awful sight. I can't really say anything to them, all I can do is tell them that I will tell the people at home what happens here and try to get my government involved. Other houses in this area have been bulldozed recently as well and some residents seem worried that other houses might go soon.

Feel pretty helpless about it all but what can you do. I will fill in place names etc and upload photos later. I am now in Jerusalem for a few hours before deciding what to do next.

Picture: part of one of demolished houses, I've decided not to use any of the pictures I took of the residents