Israel bulldozes Palestinian homes in occupied Jerusalem

JERUSALEM // Israeli authorities on Tuesday demolished two Palestinian homes, which were under construction in occupied east Jerusalem, officials said.

Dozens of police were at the scene as a bulldozer razed a single-storey building being built in the southern Sur Bahir neighbourhood, they said. No-one was living there at the time.

Elsewhere, police shut down roads as they went to demolish another, smaller and also uninhabited home in Ras al Amud near the Mount of Olives.

Fakhri Abu Diab, a local Palestinian official from the Silwan neighbourhood who witnessed the demolitions, said both homes were being built without a permit.

Permits for Palestinians to build in mainly Arab east Jerusalem are extremely rare and the Jerusalem municipality frequently issues demolition orders despite the sensitive nature of such operations on land the Palestinians want as the capital of their future state.

Israel captured east Jerusalem in the 1967 Six-Day War and later annexed it in a move never recognised by the rest of the world.

Also on Tuesday, Israeli troops in the southern West Bank bulldozed a Palestinian water well being used by shepherds near the Karmel settlement, an AFP correspondent said.