GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Bulldozers from the Palestinian Land Authority (PLA) affiliated with Hamas in the Gaza Strip demolished May 21 housing units in al-Qaraya al-Badawiya area in northern Gaza. The authority explained in a statement issued on the same day that the housing units “encroach on agricultural lands.” 

PLA Director of Public Relations Amal Shamali told Al-Monitor, “These lands are the government’s property. They were rented out to citizens between 2010 and 2012 at a low price of $100 per year for every two dunams of land in order to establish agricultural projects and create new job opportunities for unemployed youths.”

Shamali noted that the demolition aimed at halting the ongoing housing violations, among other violations against government lands in the Gaza Strip.

Rami Mansour, owner of a housing unit that was demolished on these lands, told Al-Monitor, “After I lost my house in Shajaiya neighborhood in the east of Gaza City during the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip in 2014, I built a small house consisting of one room, a bathroom and a kitchen on a piece of land that I rented from the Hamas government for agricultural purposes. I was surprised when the PLA brought its bulldozers to destroy my house.”