http://www.palestinemonitor.org/details.php?id=ohjzvxa5012yq3p734vd5 Khalid Zir, a 39-year old laborer living in
Silwan, was forced to move his family into a
cave in late August

municipal bulldozers destroyed the small
shack that had been home to his family for
seven years. The cave that lies beneath the
small hill where his home once stood, which
was once used as a stable for the family’s
farm animals, is now home to Khalid, his

children,

and five


wife

which is just 4 months old.

This is the third time Khalid has had his
house destroyed in Silwan and has few other
options for his family. “I have nowhere else
to go, I can’t rent because I’m not working
right now,” he says. He went on to lament
that the taxes that the people of Silwan pay
to the Jerusalem municipality, “are going to
the bulldozer that destroyed our house, the
tear gas they shoot at us, and the settlers.”
He continued, “Israelis

talking about the peace, but they won’t let us
live…you can imagine the kind of peace they
have in mind.”

The desperation that led Khalid to move his
family into a cave and their peculiarity of
their living situation has attracted much
media attention to

considered an old

another Palestinian home was destroyed in
Silwan, a Palestinian neighborhood in East
Jerusalem of around 55,000 inhabitants, is
nothing new. According to B’Tselem, in the
last ten years, 448 Arab-owned homes in
East Jerusalem have

leaving 1,752 people homeless. So far, in
2013, 30 homes have been knocked down,
leaving 80 homeless. In Silwan, 85% of the
homes in the area, almost all of them built
without official Israeli permits after 1967
due to the difficulty in securing them and
their high costs, have demolition orders. The
Palestinians here are losing their homes to

Jewish


encroaching

seizures by the Israeli national park, and
excavations of the expanding “City of David”
archeological site.

The Jerusalem Municipality

carrying out housing demolitions in a recent
statement made to the Associated Press (AP),
saying they had

structures

tin

uninhabitable

public property that is designated to become
a national park. Thus, the area cannot be
used for private residential purposes.”

News stories about Khalid and his family
have been published all over the world,
bringing attention

problem of housing

Jerusalem. On a recent Monday night, a
group of friends and neighbors sat with
Khalid, talking and drinking coffee in the
mouth of the cave. The entrance is covered
by a wooden façade that has a door and
window and provides the family with some
privacy. Inside, there are chairs, couches, a
television, rugs and bedding, a gas stove and
refrigerator.

Everyone was waiting for a news story to air
on Al-Jazeera about Khalid’s situation. When
the segment aired, the volume of the TV was
turned up and everyone

watching the piece. After the discussions

of

One


continued.

Mahmood Qaraeen, a local activist, brings
up the 2020 plan,

program to make the Palestinian population
in Jerusalem a minority by the year 2020.
“Every Israeli government

their part and their goal is to get an 85%
Jewish-Israeli population. It’s their dream
and they work hard.”