The visitor to Al-Bustan neighborhood - one of the neighborhoods of Silwan town located south of the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque - takes a narrow road, then the archaeological stairs lead him to the alleys of the neighborhood, whose doors are united in blue and written next to each door the name of its owner on a piece of Palestinian pottery.

Calm prevails throughout the neighborhood threatened with demolition in favor of establishing a “national park” for the Israelis in its place, but behind each of its doors is a tale of pain that the residents have lived through for many years.

Two days ago, the occupation municipality teams in Jerusalem handed demolition orders targeting 13 homes and gave their owners 21 days to self-demolish them, or bear the costs in case the municipality had to send its crews and bulldozers to implement it.

Nader Abu Diab is one of those who received this decision;

He told Al Jazeera Net that two demolition orders apply to his house, one of which is related to the "Kamenets" law and the other to the "National Park" scheme, and Abu Diab believes that self-demolition of his house is the most psychologically exhausting thing for him, wondering, "How can a person be forced to demolish his dreams and future in his own hands?"

And 10 people - including two children - live in Abu Diab's house, all waiting for a bleak fate after the deadline set by the municipality.

Not far from him, the Jerusalemite, Amani Odeh, lives in a state of great anxiety about her two-room house, which shelters her, her husband, and their two children, "Adam and Silwan".

A picture from inside the Al-Bustan neighborhood showing the neighborhood's houses, whose doors were united in blue (Al-Jazeera)

bleak future

Odeh became obliged to prepare her two children forcibly displacing them from their greenhouse in which they were born and raised. "I told them that in the coming days we may be exposed to psychological and physical harm and that we will be stationed in the sit-in tent and will not retreat from our right to live in Silwan."

At the same time, Odeh, a dentist and one of the activists in the Al-Bustan neighborhood, is working with a group of young people to form a pressure and advocacy campaign to prevent the demolition, or at least freeze it.

"I am greatly affected, but I reject the idea of ​​giving up and I am trying to find a suitable way out for us from this crisis and impending disaster," she says.

Despite her severe illness and deep concern for the fate of her home and the future of her children;

The smile did not leave the face of this Jerusalemite young woman who said goodbye to us as she recommended her 11-year-old child Adam to go daily to the sit-in tent in the neighboring Batn al-Hawa neighborhood as soon as the exams for the current school year ended.

We left the home of the Odeh family, which was written on the wall opposite it, "Here we will stay.. Al-Bustan neighborhood.. Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood." We walked up to meet one of the oldest elderly people in the family, Harbiye Odeh, who welcomed us calmly, but quickly became irritated and said, "The Jews have no property." In Silwan, our homes are stolen, and our children and grandchildren are tired of building their homes.”

The elderly woman mentions life in the Al-Bustan neighborhood in the past, saying that it is the town’s paradise;

For decades, the residents were blessed with the fruits of fig trees with an exceptional taste for their proximity to the historical spring of water, and vegetables of all kinds were grown here and sold in the markets of Jerusalem before the occupation gradually narrowed the people and turned their lives into hell.

According to Fakhri Abu Diab, a member of the Silwan Land Defense Committee, the Al-Bustan neighborhood has an area of ​​70 dunums, with 1,550 people living in 109 houses.

While the occupation has demolished 10 houses in the neighborhood so far;

The danger continues to threaten the rest as the occupation continues its efforts to establish a "national park" in the name of "King's Garden" to perpetuate and preserve the place that was - according to the Israeli promotion - "a garden for King David".

Abu Diab notes that 13 families - out of 17 to which the Kaminets Law applies - received demolition orders on Monday and Tuesday, June 7 and 8.

One of the murals in the neighborhoods of Silwan (Al-Jazeera)

Fighting Arab construction البناء

The lawyer for the Al-Bustan neighborhood families, Ziad Kawar - explains - to Al-Jazeera Net - that the "Kaminitz" law entered into force in October 2017, after it was enacted by the extreme right-wing blocs in the Israeli Knesset, and its stated goal is to "fight unlicensed construction", but Its real goal is to fight Arab construction, demolish Arab homes, and stop the process of urban expansion for the Palestinians.

With the enactment of this law, violations of unlicensed construction increased sixfold, according to Kawar;

It gave full authority to the building inspectors of the occupation municipality in Jerusalem to issue administrative violations worth hundreds of thousands of shekels without the need to go to the court, from which the authority was also withdrawn to postpone the implementation of demolition orders.

Based on this law;

There is no legal course that can be taken to postpone or prevent demolition of homes built from 2017 onwards.

Kawar says, "As a lawyer, I compare myself before this law to the unarmed soldier in the war. The opponent in front of me is armed with modern weapons, and I am completely disgraced in front of him."

The lawyer believes that a bleak fate awaits the 17 houses in the Al-Bustan neighborhood classified under the "Camints" law, in addition to legal procedures against 90% of the neighborhood's buildings.

Kawar says, "We succeeded in postponing all demolition orders, except for the ones that apply to the Caminitz law, until next August, and at the beginning of July we will submit new requests to the local affairs court in the municipality to postpone the demolition, in an attempt to change the classification of the neighborhood from a public area (garden). to a residential neighborhood.

However, lawyer Kawar believes that the possibility of succeeding in changing the classification of the neighborhood and stopping the forced displacement from it is slim, because the official Israeli institutions succumb to the pressures of the extremist settlers and cancel their previous pledges they made to the residents of the Al-Bustan neighborhood.