Israeli authorities have demolished at least 140 Palestinian homes in east Jerusalem this year, a rights group said Thursday, adding this is the highest annual number since it began keeping records in 2004.
The B'Tselem rights group said 238 Palestinians have lost their homes this year, including 127 minors. The second-highest number of demolitions on record was in 2016, when 92 homes were demolished.
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Israeli officials did not respond to requests for comment.
The demolition of homes built without permits comes amid a major increase in Jewish settlement activity in Judea and Samaria and east Jerusalem since President Donald Trump took office.
Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital in 2017, breaking with a longstanding international consensus and angering the Palestinians, who cut off all contacts with the White House in response.
Shortly after uniting its capital in the 1967 Six-Day War, Israel expanded the municipal boundaries to take in large areas of vacant land on which it later constructed Jewish neighborhoods. At the same time, it sharply limited the expansion of Palestinian neighborhoods, and as a result, illegal construction has flourished.
Last month, another Israeli rights group, Peace Now, obtained official figures on building permits in east Jerusalem going back to 1991 that provided evidence of alleged systematic discrimination against Palestinian residents. It claims that while Palestinians make up more than 60% of the population of east Jerusalem, they had received just 30% of the necessary permits.
As a result, Peace Now estimates that half of the 40,000 housing units built in Palestinian neighborhoods since 1967 lack permits, placing them at constant risk of demolition.
B'Tselem said commercial structures are also being demolished at the highest rate on record, with 76 dismantled so far this year, compared to 70 in all of 2018.
The B'Tselem figures only cover homes demolished because they were built illegally and do not include those destroyed over their owner's involvement in terrorist activity.
Israel maintains that demolishing the family homes of terrorists deters violence, while the Palestinians see it as a form of collective punishment.
