Tafakji: Jerusalemites Need 40 Thousand Housing Units

Al-Quds, 1 Jumadil Akhir 1437/10 March 2016 (MINA) – The Palestinians in occupied Jerusalem are in need of 40 thousand housing units to alleviate residential crisis affecting the majority of them, according to the Jerusalemite expert Khalil Tafakji.

Khalil Tafaaji, head of maps department at the Arab Studies Society, said in a seminar on “housing in Jerusalem,” Tuesday, that about one fifth of the Jerusalemites are living in illegal buildings threatened with demolition. “These living conditions are reflecting on their social and health lives”, The Palestinian Information Center (PIC) quoted by Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA) as reporting.

He pointed out that if Jerusalemites live outside the municipal boundaries of Jerusalem Center, they lose their Jerusalem identification card; therefore, they are forced to live in inadequate housing for human habitation or in buildings built without a permit in order to maintain the Jerusalem identification card.

Tafakji stressed that the demographic balance policy was a major reason of residential crisis of the Palestinians in Jerusalem, as the Israeli occupation authorities (IOA) implemented a scheme of freezing residential construction so as to ban any future expansion and stop the development of existing buildings.

He explained that policies of confiscations, green areas, unorganized streets and areas, are the basis of this scheme.

He added that it is almost impossible to obtain construction permits for Palestinians because there are no structural drawings for the Palestinian neighborhoods and because of procrastination in the preparation of these structural drawings or preparing structural drawings which do not meet the needs of the population to organized lands, in addition to allocating low construction rates which do not meet the needs of the Palestinian neighborhoods, ranging from (25% -75%) compared to the rates allocated for settlements (120% – 300%).

Tafakji emphasized that this geographical restrictions and lack of other alternatives to the Palestinian population resulted in the density of population in these neighborhoods; the density reaches up to 13,500 people/km2 compared to western Jerusalem’s 8,300 person/km2 and 900 people/km2 in the East Jerusalem settlements.

He stressed that as a result of Palestinian population increase, the Palestinians are in urgent need of 40 thousand housing units to alleviate their housing crisis in addition to 10 thousand housing units per year.

In his turn, Refat Nasir al-Din, Secretary of the Society, pointed out that the IOA sought after taking control of Jerusalem, to take over the administrative and real estate control of the city.

He also pointed to the Absentee Property Law of 1950 as an additional instrument the IOA uses to control the land that belonged to Palestinians and the seizure of Palestinian land and property by “legally” considering them as absentees depending on the Absentee Property Law.

He further mentioned the third generation law, which is one of the laws used by the Israeli occupation forces to expel the Palestinian population of the Old City of Jerusalem. He explained that it legitimizes the confiscation of property for the benefit of the Jews.(T/P008R01)

Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA)