To a pile of rubble around the occupation, sources of livelihood for dozens of citizens in the town of Hizma, northeast of occupied Jerusalem.

Among the scattered stones, tin remains, and metal bars, owners of commercial establishments destroyed by the occupation, at dawn on Monday, search for the remains of goods crushed by Israeli bulldozers.

West of the town of Hizma and near the military checkpoint erected on citizens’ lands, the occupation committed a demolition massacre against 15 commercial establishments employing dozens of citizens, claiming that they were not licensed.

Local sources reported that the occupation forces stormed the town after midnight tonight, set up a military checkpoint on the Martyr “Ariba” roundabout, surrounded commercial establishments and prevented their owners from entering the area until the demolition process was completed.

The facilities, which include car repair shops and shops selling spare parts, are located and are owned by citizens Odeh Jabr Al-Khatib, Muhammad Mustafa Al-Khatib, and Mahmoud Jabr Al-Khatib.

Huge losses
The occupation forces deliberately inflicted the greatest losses on shop owners by preventing them from taking out the valuable goods they contained and burying them under the rubble of their facilities.

Qusay al-Khatib, one of the facility owners, explained that they suffered losses of more than 600,000 shekels, most of which were the price of car spare parts crushed by occupation bulldozers.

Khasib added that the occupation stormed the area at midnight, and began directly demolishing their facilities without allowing the goods in the store to be removed and avoiding major losses.

The occupation forces target the town of Hizma by demolishing, confiscating and bulldozing lands, storming the town and arresting its residents.

The occupation and its settlements isolate the town of Hizma from its Palestinian geographical surroundings, and deprive its residents of complete access to the city of Jerusalem after the construction of the settlement wall in 2004.

The “Pizgat Zeev” settlement, the largest of the settlements on the outskirts of Jerusalem, is located on the town’s lands, which is surrounded from the western side by the “Nabi Yaakov” settlement, “Adam” from the northern side, and “Almon” from the southeastern side.

The occupation has established a main military checkpoint on the lands of Hizma since 1990, separating it from Beit Hanina and Shuafat, in addition to erecting permanent checkpoints at its northern and southern entrances and iron gates that cut off all roads leading to the town.

During the past year, the occupation authorities demolished about 950 homes and facilities in the West Bank and Jerusalem, including 65 homes whose owners were forced to self-demolish them. Demolition orders were also issued for 2,290 homes and other facilities, according to official data published by the Land Research Center.