(PHOTOS IN EXTENDED ARTICLE)

The Jerusalem Municipality, with the assistance of Jerusalem Police in an unprecedented combined enforcement operation, began to increase Israel’s sovereignty in the Shuafat Refugee Camp in line with City Hall’s new policy, as reported by YWN-Israel.

As part of the combined operation, the municipality is carrying out enforcement actions to protect the public space, alongside policing activities and maintaining the law and order implemented by police.

During the operation, many public areas are being cleared, which includes removing some twenty illegal shops built from light and unsafe materials, as they took over the area illegally, including roads and sidewalks, posing a serious danger to the flow of traffic and to pedestrians. In addition, illegal gas stations and fuel pumps that pose a health and safety hazard to residents are being removed.

It should be noted that since the opening of the police Combined Service Center (Shomat) [מרכז השירות המשולב (מש”מ) ] in the Shuafat refugee camp about two years ago, the Jerusalem Police Enforcement & Policing Department has been working in full cooperation with the police officers of the Shomat, and they are leading a series of unprecedented actions to deepen sovereignty and governance towards improving the quality of life of local residents – cleaning public areas of construction waste at an investment of hundreds of thousands of shekels, removing hundreds of car scrap from the public space, and cracking down against business owners taking over the public space, and more.

It should be emphasized that the municipal and police activity in the refugee camp is being received positively by most of the residents, who welcome the removal of the terrorists and the evacuation of the public space. The actions of the municipality and the police are coordinated with representatives of the residents, who have repeatedly raised the need to remove the shops that illegally took over the sidewalks, posing a real danger to the students of nearby schools who had to walk on the road between the moving cars.

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem/Photo Credit: Jerusalem Municipality Spokesman Unit)