Another family loses its house

Jabril Abu Safar sitting on all that is left of his son's home

EAs interview members of the family

This morning there was another house demolition in Beit Hanina, north of Jerusalem. A single-family home was completely bulldozed in an hour before the Ecumenical Accompaniers got there.

The owner of the house, Rahed Abu Safar, is in an Israeli jail. His wife and three children were not in the house when the demolition crew, police, and soldiers came without warning, because they had spent the night with Rahed's grandfather at the Shufat Refugee Camp. The family says it received an eviction order for living in a house without a permit, and the authorities want to build a road through the area.

To seek help for the family, we reported the incident to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Rahed's cousin Nasser told us, "It's very difficult for our family.We have to be patient. What else can we do? This is our country." According to the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICHAD), Israel has destroyed 27,000 Palestinian homes since 1967.

Jabril removing furniture from the rubble