Fakhri Abu Diab, chairman of the Committee for the Defence of The Land of Silwan in occupied Jerusalem, said that six neighbourhoods in the Silwan area of occupied Jerusalem are "completely threatened with demolition".
He added in a press release on Sunday, that the Israeli occupation is seeking to disrupt the demographic balance in Jerusalem on behalf of Jewish settlers, warning of the Israeli "Holy Basin" project, which starts from the Neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah north of the Old City, to Silwan south of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, including the Old City.
Abu Diab said the project aims to "liquidate" the Arab and Islamic presence and "change the population, geographical and historical landscape, and requires "expelling and displacing citizens, seizing their land, and not giving them licenses."
He pointed out that the area of Silwan, adjacent to al-Aqsa Mosque in the south and southeast, extends to 5,640 dunums, and has more than 60,000 inhabitants, and includes six neighborhoods threatened with complete demolition, and more than 6,800 houses whose owners have handed over demolition reports, while the occupation has not granted any building permit in the area since 1967.
Abu Diab warned of the existence of a major plan that the occupation seeks to implement on the ground in 2030, calling for international and popular action and official plans.
He pointed out that "in 2020, according to the statistics of the occupation municipality, the residents of Silwan paid more than 13 million shekels (the shekel = 0.30 US dollars) as building violations, to put economic pressure and tighten the noose around Jerusalemites," adding that the occupation deliberately pursues a policy of self-demolition "to double The mental state of the citizen, not just the physical.
