On Wednesday afternoon Israeli authorities from the Jerusalem Municipality, accompanied by police forces, entered into the Shufat refugee camp in occupied East Jerusalem and began demolishing Palestinian storefronts in the camp.

By the time authorities left, some 18 clothing, grocery, and bakery shops and three gas stations had been bulldozed to the ground, according to locals. Some of the shops had been standing for more than a decade.

The demolitions are the latest action taken by the municipality inside Shufat, as part of the city's new policy of extending the reach of municipal enforcement to Palestinian refugee camps in East Jerusalem, in order to end the presence of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) in Jerusalem and eventually shut down all its services.