An-Najah News -  Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor warned in a policy memo it shared with European decision-makers earlier this month “The period from March to August 2020 had the highest average israeli destruction rate in four years.”

It noted that between January and August 2020 Israel demolished 89 houses in East Jerusalem compared to 104 for all of 2019 and 72 in 2018, which is putting Israel’s government on track for a record year in the number of razing of Palestinian structures in East Jerusalem.

The amount of EU-funded structures Israel destroyed or confiscated in 2019 was twice as much as in 2018.

The memo further noted “an even more alarming reality” where Israel’s increasingly “escalated and accelerated destruction of EU-funded projects” has been compounded in recent years by “a sharp decline in the number of EU-funded structures” in Area C and East Jerusalem. 

“In 2019, the number of internationally (mainly European) financed Palestinian projects shrank to only 12 compared to 75 in 2015.”

Euro-Med Monitor warned European lawmakers that such a phenomenon is “akin to penalizing Palestinians for the Israeli government’s destruction of European funded structures rather than standing up to Israel’s government.”

The EU’s failure to translate its strong positions on the two-state solution and exert significant pressure on Israel to halt its assault on Palestinian structures have only encouraged Israel to escalate its practices.