Mayor Teddy Kollek has protested to the military authorities over the demolition of the partially built house of a terrorist suspect in an Arab neighborhood in the northern section of Jerusalem. Kollek said it was wrong to take such action within the city limits, especially without consulting the municipal authorities.
According to Kollek the Military. Government on the West Bank apologized and said it had not known that the house was in the city. The bull-dozers appeared without warning early one day last week and quickly leveled the uncompleted building owned by the Tayeh family. Their son, Khader Tayer, was arrested recently on suspicion of involvement in serious terrorist incidents.
The demolition was the first in Jerusalem in two years. In 1975 a two-storey building was destroyed after the arrest of its owners, three brothers suspected of firing rockets into the city and murdering a cab driver. Standing procedure has been to coordinate such acts with the Jerusalem municipality. After the last incident the general policy has been to block the entrance to buildings owned by suspected terrorists rather than destroy them. That policy applied only inside the city.
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