LONDON: Last month, Jews in Israel and around the world celebrated the holiday of Hannukah, which commemorates the victory of Jewish rebels who rose up against the Greek occupiers of Jerusalem in the second century B.C.E.
Each year the week-long holiday, its timing determined by the Hebrew calendar, falls on different dates. This December it began on Dec. 14 and ended at nightfall on Dec. 22 — the same day Israeli forces bulldozed an apartment building in East Jerusalem.
This act of mass eviction left about 90 Palestinians homeless and drove home the reality that it is now the Jewish state that is the occupier in Jerusalem.
The 12-hour operation, supported by soldiers and a mob of stone-throwing Jewish youths, came without warning, despite the fact that the residents’ lawyer had a meeting scheduled with Jerusalem Municipality’s legal department that very day.
Israeli forces gather as an excavator demolishes a building built without a permit in the east Jerusalem neighbourhood of Wadi Qaddum on December 22, 2025. (AFP)
