How a Palestinian man watched his Israeli friend bulldoze his house

Ashraf Fawaka woke up on the morning of May 4 and took Aya, his month-old daughter, to the clinic. It was like any other day, until he got a call from his neighbours; Israeli soldiers had surrounded his house in Surbaher, a Palestinian neighbourhood in East Jerusalem, with orders to demolish the structure he had so painstakingly built.

As the 32-year-old father of four raced back home, he tried to convince himself his house was protected by the official stay order he had managed to get. 

The sight that greeted Fawaka, a bulldozer operator, was hard for him to stomach. But it was not as shocking to see his house being razed to the ground as it was to see that the man operating the bulldozer was none other than Moti, his Jewish friend from work, who would bring him dinner during night shifts.

“It’s his job. What can he do?” Fawaka told TRT World, well aware that even if Moti refused to demolish the house, someone else would have.

Soon after the giant metal claw pulled back from the first assault on Fawaka’s house, the machine suffered a rupture and started leaking oil. As a bulldozer operator, Fawaka knew an oil leak was Moti’s way of refusing to destroy his friend’s house.

The damage had already been done. Still, as they waited for another bulldozer to arrive, Fawaka showed the Israeli soldiers the court order to halt demolitions.

The soldier leading the charge against Fawaka’s house agreed the demolition was against the court order but the municipality official present did not acknowledge the authority of the directive.

The discussion resulted in an on-site emergency court hearing. It took the same judge who approved the stay just one hour to revoke his own decision.

“If I knew the court order was useless, I wouldn’t have spent money to get one at all,” Fawaka said as he tried to keep a level head.

But the crowd at hand was restless with rage. Some of them, including his friends and brother, were so angry that Fawaka feared a clash with the soldiers. He knew a fight would lead to arrests.

"Let the house go ... but I don’t want to lose more," Fawaka told himself. 

He was not reckless. He knew what responsibility was; he knew because he quit school at age 13 to support his sick father. He knew because now he was responsible for his wife and daughters. 

His daughters, aged nine and seven, were about to come from school – but to what, he wondered. Their home now lay in rubble.

Every Palestinian who has been told they built their house without a permit knows a court order to suspend the demolition only buys them some time to move. But in Fawaka’s case, it didn’t give him any time to get ready at all.  

The Abdullah al Hourani Centre for Studies and Documentation says over 140 houses and containers have been razed by Israeli authorities in Area C, spread across 60 percent of the West Bank, and East Jerusalem, where the Israeli state has required a permit for any kind of construction since 1967, between January and August in 2017.

“It was my turn. My paper was chosen,” Fawaka understood how the process worked. He said he did not resent the fact that his neighbours’ houses survived the chopping block. 

However, that did not mean he had empathy for the Israeli officials behind the demolitions. “Have you ever heard of authorities demolishing a Jewish citizen’s house because they didn’t have a permit?” Fawaka questioned.

He would like to build a house with a permit – if he could.

Rights groups argue that obtaining building permits is much harder for Palestinians; not so much for the Jewish population in East Jerusalem. The number of construction violations is much higher in Jewish neighbourhoods, they say.

“I built playgrounds for their [Jewish] kids to enjoy, and this is what they’ve done to my children,” Fawaka said. He’s a Palestinian Muslim. 

“I would not demolish any house if I am asked to. Jewish or Arab. That is not who I am,” Fawaka said.

“If you come back after three hours, you will find a tent and a caravan here,” Fawaka told the soldiers defiantly. It was a kind of protest for him; he would not give up his land. “If you come and raze the caravan and tent, we will build another one.”

In two days, Fawaka set up their new "home" right next to what was left of their house of seven years.

The caravan was a tight fit for for the family of six. One bed was squeezed into a room which was also the kitchen. 

In the other room, there was a small desk with office supplies that Fawaka was able to salvage from the rubble. Two very thin and narrow mattresses were on the floor and four pictures, taken inside the house demolished by the Israeli crew, hung on the wall. This is the room where he and his wife Islam slept.

Saba, who was four, complained she had no space to play. 

The two older daughters were still young – Ritaj was nine and Inas seven – but they had  a fragile strength. They could see their parents were also upset.

When they came back from school that day in May to their home being ripped apart by the bulldozer, Ritaj and Inas tried to console their father; they have not complained even once. But Fawaka could see the girls were disturbed by the loss of their home. He saw them go to the spot where their room used to be and play there.

And so Fawaka set up another tent to create a play area. Covered on the inside with a colourful patterned fabric which he brought from Ramallah, it almost didn't feel like a tent.

Two months later, as Fawaka and his family were getting used to life in their new home – barely the size of their previous living room – an Israeli official knocked on their door to ask them to remove the remains of their last house. 

When he saw Fawaka’s daughters sleeping in cramped conditions, the officer also told Fawaka he needed to dismantle his current living quarters. He had till after Eid al Adha, the feast of sacrifice observed by Muslims. 

“I don’t want to see your children sleeping in this caravan. You need to move to a proper flat,” he told Fawaka.

“It’s just like the saying: They hit you in the face and then fix your hat.” 

Fawaka has been hit twice before but he has fixed his hat each time. It took Fawaka ten years to save up for the house the Israelis tore down. The house cost him approx. $ 190,000 (680,000 shekels) to construct and approx. $ 33,000 (120,000 shekels) more in fines. He then paid some more to clean up the rubble worth around $ 220,00 (800,000 shekels) and set up camp. 

Fawaka still worked for the same bulldozer company with Moti, but he did not have any savings left to risk his belongings being demolished, or to clean up the rubble for a second time.

He rented a tiny apartment with two rooms. It’s only temporary, Fawaka convinced himself and his family. “One day I will build us a new house,” he told them. 

But until then, his tent remained in the same spot where his house once stood in East Jerusalem. 

“I will go there everyday so I know that I own something here.”