Israel demolishes Palestinian home

Israeli security forces demolished a Palestinian home in east Jerusalem on Wednesday after subduing stone-throwing protesters trying to prevent the demolition.

There were no reports of injuries during the two-hour confrontation. More than 100 paramilitary border guards, including several on horseback, massed near the one-story home as a heavy construction vehicle demolished it.

Israel says the structure was illegally built. However, critics say the permits are virtually impossible to obtain and call the demolition part of an Israeli policy to limit Palestinian population growth in the disputed city.

Israel captured east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war and subsequently annexed the area.The Palestinians claim the eastern part of the city as the capital of their hoped-for state.

Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said authorities went to the Silwan neighborhood in east Jerusalem early Wednesday to secure the area ahead of the demolition.

Angry residents threw rocks at police from nearby rooftops. Security forces fired rubber bullets, and Rosenfeld said stun grenades and other non-lethal devices were used. Witnesses said about a dozen people had barricaded themselves inside early in the confrontation, but Karim Jibran, a community activist, said they agreed to leave the building after lengthy negotiations with police.

Security forces had Palestinians cart the belongings out of the house. A red plastic tricycle, a crate with kitchenware and a few potatoes, a sofabed and a refrigerator affixed with the photos of children were carried out to the lot outside the house before a vehicle-mounted jackhammer reduced the building to rubble.

'Hazardous reality of riots, tensions'

Jibran said the Jerusalem municipality has issued demolition orders against 90 homes in the neighborhood to build a park.

The owner of the home, Mohammed Siam, said he had rented out the building to a Palestinian family of six. "What kind of person destroys someone's home?" he asked through a translator. A neighbor said the family had just moved in its belongings a day earlier but had not lived there.

Protesters later scuffled with border police who came to an unfinished house less than 100 yards away, also slated for destruction. Several officers lifted a struggling protester by the arms and legs into a waiting police van. Said Abu Sanad, who owns the unfinished building, said a widow with two children, aged 4 and 6, had moved in a few days earlier but he did not know where she had gone.

Abu Sanad, who also spoke with a translator, said security forces gave him 48 hours to knock the building down.

Yudith Oppenheimer, executive director of Ir Amim, a group that promotes coexistence in the city, condemned the demolition. "It brings about a hazardous reality of riots and tensions in a place in which thus far has been quiet," she said.

The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, a local advocacy group, said 86 Palestinian homes in east Jerusalem have been demolished this year.