RAMALLAH, West Bank — Fatima Abbasi left her Jerusalem home Nov. 19 to go to work. She was caught off-guard, she told Al-Monitor, when a relative called to tell her municipal workers, escorted by Israeli police, were preparing to demolish the house. By the end of the day, the structure was gone, and she and her four children were homeless.
Abbasi, a school teacher, said she had received no prior demolition notice or warning from the municipality that her 130-square-meter (1,400-square-foot) house would be destroyed. She and her family had to move into her father's home in Jerusalem while she looks for a house to rent.