Two Palestinian families on Thursday demolished the east Jerusalem homes they had lived in for nearly two decades, saying they would rather destroy them than face the prospect of Israeli settlers moving in.
Within two hours, two mechanical diggers smashed through the ceilings, walls and floors of the two buildings in Beit Hanina, 8 kilometers (5 miles) north of central Jerusalem.
Jihad Shawamreh, 50, a taxi driver, said he built his six-room house in 2000. Until Thursday, his ex-wife Fawzia, their six children and other relatives lived in it.
The demolition followed a lengthy legal battle. Israel's High Court of Justice ruled in January that the land on which the homes were built had been under Jewish ownership since 1974 and that documents presented by the Palestinian families to support their ownership claims had been forged.
The families argued that they had bought the plots in good faith and believed they were the rightful owners.
"I built [my house] with my own hands. It is where I brought up my children. This is where they grew up," Shawamreh said, as the digger went to work.
"We took down the houses for fear of seeing [Jewish] settlers move in, and having to see them inside the house," he said.
The Israel Land Authority, whose stated goal is "acquiring all the land of Israel for the Jewish people," ran an advertisement on its website after the court decision six months ago looking for "four idealistic families" willing to move into the homes.
Authority director Arieh King told Reuters there were no immediate plans for new construction. He said the land had been sold by its original Israeli owners to other Israeli buyers. He did not identify them.
Shawamreh said the demolition cost 30,000 shekels ($8,200) and that he had turned down offers of money from Israeli settlers to leave the homes standing.
Friends, neighbors and the newly homeless families watched glumly on a hillside in Beit Hanina as dust rose into the air.
Shawamreh's neighbor, Zeinat Abu Rumeileh, 62, cried as she sat beside the other demolished home, in a tent she said had been provided by the Palestinian Authority.
"I am not able to watch," Rumeileh said, weeping into a handkerchief. "I was afraid, of course, but we didn't think that this would happen, or even come close to happening."
