The Israeli occupation authorities today forced a Palestinian to demolish his house in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of al-Tur to avoid paying exorbitant costs if the Jerusalem municipality carries out the demolition on its own.

The Abu Ghannam family, which owned the house, opted to tear down its three-story home on its own to avoid paying over $60,000 in costs to the municipality for the demolition costs.

The municipality claimed the house was built without a permit and therefore issued a demolition order against it giving the owner the option to tear it down himself, otherwise, the municipality would demolish it and force him to pay costs.

This is the second time Abu Ghannam’s home has been demolished; the first time was in 1994.

Using the pretext of illegal building, Israel demolishes houses on a regular basis to restrict Palestinian expansion in occupied Jerusalem.

At the same time, the municipality and government build tens of thousands of housing units in illegal settlements in East Jerusalem for Jews with a goal to offset the demographic balance in favor of the Jewish settlers in the occupied city.