Partially demolished building poses threat to neighbours

Ramallah The building was a key target of the Israeli military for demolition in 2002 because it housed the Palestinian Military Intelligence and the most-wanted officer.

The Israeli explosive experts pounded only the fifth floor of the building, which was the Palestinian spy office, with tanks and left the rest because the shelling could damage the adjacent structures. The fifth floor was also the residence of the then-intelligence chief, Mazen Hosni Al Ahmad, locally known as Abu Al Wafa, who topped the Israeli list of most-wanted Palestinians. Abu Al Wafa was from Kafr Al Deek and was allegedly responsible for the killing of several Israeli soldiers during the Israeli invasion of the West Bank in Operation Defensive Shield 2002.

Ten years later, the structure in Salfit, Ramallah, is posing a threat to the neighbours.

The owner of the building, Saeed Abu Al Shaikh, who had invested his lifetime savings of Dh1 million on the structure when he built it in 1995, could not bear the tragedy and died a month after it was partially demolished, the son of the deceased told Gulf News.

Mahmoud Abu Al Shaikh said, “My father assumed that leasing the entire building to the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) would relieve him from the headache of individual tenants,” he said.

So when the building was ready in 1995, Abu Al Shaikh had leased it to PNA, which used it for its offices of Statistics Department, Special Forces, Women’s Committee, Social Affairs and the Military Intelligence. He said his father was summoned by the Israeli military to witness the demolition. “My family had assumed that the demolition would affect my father,” he said.

He explained that after the demolition, a Palestinian committee of construction engineers examined the remains of the structure and concluded that the Israelis had demolished it in a way which had destroyed the building’s foundation, reducing it to a ramshackle and posing a serious threat to its neighbours and surroundings.

The Palestinian Ministry of Local Administration had summoned the descendents of the building’s owner, urging them to find a solution to the problem. “We do not have the financial resources to have the building demolished completely and remove the rubble,” Abu Al Shaikh said.

He added that PNA had promised suitable compensation but it turned out to be an empty promise. He stressed that his father had leased the building to PNA in 1995, but PNA did not pay rents until its demolition in 2002. He said that the issue of removal of the rubble is resolved, his family will raise the issue of accumulated rents amounting to about Dh200,000. “We will lodge a complaint with the Palestinian Higher Court of Justice, claiming rent arrears for the last 17 years.

Meanwhile, the neighbours said the structure has been a nightmare for them and that they had complained to the Palestinian authorities several times. As a responsible government in the West Bank, the PNA should demolish the building and remove the rubble, the neighbours felt.

Ebrahim Sowailem, a neighbour, told Gulf News that during the past decade several cement blocks have fallen onto the main street. He stressed that neighbours had held meetings to find a solution, but nobody dared to climb the building to remove the cement pillars, which are dangerous.

According to Israeli law, the military cannot demolish a structure if it is likely to damage nearby buildings but in this case, the Israeli military flouted its own regulations, Sowailem said.