B’Tselem, a Jerusalem-based non-profit human rights organization, said the Israeli municipality has demolished 165 Palestinian homes in Jerusalem since the beginning of 2019, under the pretext of unlicensed construction.

In a report released on Thursday, B’Tselem’s spokesperson Kareem Jubran said the Israeli municipality has stepped up home demolitions and refrained from approving the structural maps of Jerusalemites.

According to Jubran, the number of houses demolished since the beginning of this year until the end of October has reached 165.

He added that the Israeli municipality levies hefty fines on the house owners, forcing a number of Jerusalemites to self-demolish their own homes lest they be fined by the occupation authorities.

Out of the 165 demolition cases this year, 40 were carried out by their own owners to dodge the high demolition costs imposed by the Israeli municipality.

Jubran said that the occupation had canceled all the old structural plans, grabbed Palestinian land plots, and declared most of the unconstructed areas as green, natural reserves and archaeological sites, preventing many Palestinians to use their lands.