ISTANBUL

Israeli army forces destroyed a residential building consisting of eight apartments and 15 stores in occupied East Jerusalem, local authorities said on Tuesday.

In a statement, the Jerusalem governor’s office said Israeli forces and military bulldozers raided al-Salam neighborhood of Anata town in East Jerusalem and began to demolish the under-construction building.

According to the statement, Israeli authorities issued a decree last year banning the owners from constructing the building.

Local sources told Anadolu that Israeli forces destroyed three floors of the building and rendered the rest unusable.

Figures released by the Jerusalem governor showed that 623 homes and facilities have been destroyed by the Israeli army since October 2023.

In recent months, Israel has intensified home demolitions across East Jerusalem and the West Bank amid rising tensions in the occupied territory over Tel Aviv’s ongoing war on the Gaza Strip, where more than 57,500 people have been killed since October 2023.

Human rights organizations accuse Israel of deliberately restricting building permits for Palestinians in East Jerusalem as part of a broader effort to limit the Palestinian population in the occupied city.

Since the start of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, at least 989 Palestinians have been killed and more than 7,000 injured in the West Bank by Israeli forces and illegal settlers, the Palestinian Health Ministry said.

In a landmark opinion last July, the International Court of Justice declared Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory illegal and called for the evacuation of all settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.