They were then forced to witness the destruction of their homes by Israeli bulldozers in order to create a plaza for Jewish prayer in front of the Western (Wailing) wall. At least 6,000 houses, many of them ancient and historical, were demolished immediately following the 1967 war and four entire villages were razed in the Latrun area.

According to a number of NGOs, including the Israel Committee Against Home Demolitions, since Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza from 1967, more than 18,000 Palestinian homes in the occupied territories have been destroyed, leaving nearly 80,000 Palestinians homeless.

During the period of the second intifada or Palestinian uprising, from Sept. 2000 to May 2007, about 1,900 Palestinian homes were demolished by the Israeli Civil Administration for lack of proper permits.

Additionally, more than 628 Palestinian homes were demolished during the second intifada as "collective punishment," where an entire family would be made homeless if a member of the family had been involved in throwing stones or other resistance activity against the occupation.

"But an Israeli military commission in 2005 decided to stop this policy as they found that it was counterproductive from a security deterrence point of view. Additionally, the commission found that these demolitions actually increased the hostility of the Palestinian population toward Israel and encouraged more acts of violence," Jessica Montell, the director general of Israeli human rights organization, B'Tselem told the Middle East Times.

However, according to ICAHD the Israeli authorities continue to demolish homes that they claim are illegally built without permits. But this is part of a deliberate policy aimed at ensuring a Jewish majority in Jerusalem, i.e. Judaizing the city against the demographic threat of a higher birth rate amongst Palestinians.

Meir Margalit, a member of ICAHD, wrote a book called "No Place Like Home," in which he outlined the discrimination and obstacles Palestinians in East Jerusalem face in obtaining the requisite building permits to build new homes.

"The ideological motive is rooted in a policy decision establishing that a demographic balance must be maintained in the city at a ratio of 70 percent Jews to 30 percent Palestinians. The ministerial committee known as the Gafni Commission laid down this policy in 1973," Margalit explained.

Furthermore, a municipal paper prepared by the Planning Policy Division in 1977 states, "One of the cornerstones of Jerusalem's planning process is the preservation of the demographic balance between the ethnic groups [in accordance with] the

resolution of the Government of Israel."

In order to make it very difficult for Palestinians, the Israeli authorities have instituted a number of procedures before they will issue the requisite building permits with the result being that there is a created shortage of more than 25,000 housing units for Palestinians.

These include proving ownership of land by means of registration, which is almost impossible for those third parties who required land under Jordanian law, as the previous owner is required to come in person to the municipality to change the name.

Another difficulty for Palestinians attempting to obtain the permits is that the Israelis won't issue permits where there is a lack of infrastructure, namely water, sewage and roads as the Planning and Building Law prohibits this. As Israel spends significantly less money on East Jerusalem's infrastructure than West Jerusalem's this further complicates the issue.

Furthermore, according to Margalit's book, crippling taxes for opening a building permit file, a roads and sidewalk development fee, a water and sewage fee, and a betterment levy fee can add up to approximately New Israeli Shekels (NIS) of 109,000, or over $29,000, a fee which many poor East Jerusalemites are unable to afford.

Hisham Shkoukani, the deputy minister of technical affairs, for the Palestinian Economic Council for Development and Construction, told the Middle East Times that "Palestinians in East Jerusalem can wait up to two years and spend a lot of money waiting for a permit.

"Even after the long wait and the huge expense, many times the permits are not granted, and so housing and rentals in East Jerusalem are so dear that they compare price wise with the much more affluent city of Tel Aviv, and the queue of people waiting for homes grows ever longer," he added.

And while the policy of building permits and taxes are applied to both Arab East Jerusalem and Jewish West Jerusalem there are further fundamental and discriminatory differences.

The expenses payable in Jewish neighborhoods are distributed among a large number of occupants, whereas in the Palestinian sector the costs fall on a single family. Furthermore, the socio-economic level in East Jerusalem is far lower than in West Jerusalem and fining Palestinians for allegedly building illegally has also been lucrative for the Jewish state.

Between 2001 and 2006, the municipal court collected the massive amount of $34,053,518 in fines, 70 percent of municipal fines came from Palestinians, while the entire amount collected by the Ministry of the Interior came from Palestinians, with the remainder being collected from West Jerusalem.

Finally, the majority of demolitions carried out in Jewish West Jerusalem are for minor infractions such as the illegal building of sheds, staircases, balconies. While in East Jerusalem demolitions are of entire dwellings and multi-storey apartment buildings, or significant portions of dwellings, states ICAHD.