Until September 2009 Ahmad Qara'een worked as a lorry driver to support his wife and children in their home in Silwan, a Palestinian village situated just outside the Old City in east Jerusalem.

One evening that September, while two of Ahmad's sons, at the time aged eight and 10, were playing in the street outside their home, they were attacked by a man carrying a M16 rifle.

Hearing their shouts Ahmad rushed out to be shot in each knee by the gunman.

He described to me how the police and an ambulance were called and how he was rushed to hospital where he remained for 20 days while doctors fought to save his legs.

As a consequence of the attack Ahmad lost his job and became permanently disabled. He can only walk with the aid of crutches.

For most readers of this account, based on knowledge of their own country's legal system, the rest of this narrative would be predictable.

The victim and his sons would be questioned by police and CCTV images examined in order to identify and apprehend the criminal, who hopefully would be caught, tried and sentenced. The victim might be awarded compensation.

But not in Ahmad's case.

His sons were interviewed by the Israeli police who chided them for playing in the street, thereby causing the incident in which their father was injured.

They were also asked what they would do if they saw the man again.

Ahmad was interviewed - but it was to accuse him of attacking the gunman.

He recommended the police check the CCTV images to prove his innocence. He was told that the CCTV had broken down the day of the shooting.

Shortly afterwards, miraculously, the CCTV had sprung into action again to film some boys who had started to throw stones following the shooting, which enabled the police to arrest them.

And the gunman? Being an Israeli settler, he was detained for a day, released and his rifle was returned to him.

Around 400 settlers live in Silwan, which has a Palestinian population of about 45,000, 70 per cent of whom are unemployed and/or live on the breadline.

Many settlers are armed and there are frequent attacks on both Palestinians and their property. In the first 10 months of 2013 these have included attacking children with pepper sprays and glass, stoning buses taking 100 children to summer camp and breaking the bus windows, trying to remove a hijab from a young woman, setting fire to a church and an olive grove, slashing car tyres and damaging gravestones in a cemetery.

It is not apparent that any of the attackers have been convicted.

Such incidents are not unusual in occupied east Jerusalem and the West Bank where the Israeli human rights organisation Yesh Din has reported that between 2005 and 2013 just 8.5 per cent of settler attacks against Palestinians and their property have resulted in an indictment.

On the other hand Palestinians receive long prison sentences for much less than attacking settlers. Palestinians in the Occupied Territories live under military law, while Israeli civil law applies to the settlers. Apart from the absurd situation of people living in close proximity falling under separate legal systems, it is a strange system of civil law that leaves shootings and attacks unpunished.

The settlers, the first of whom arrived in 1991, live in homes and build on village land taken from Palestinians.

They consider themselves to have sole rights to the land because it is claimed that Silwan itself was built over the ruins of the City of David, the ancient Jewish city of Jerusalem.

The Israeli government gives them its full support. The fact that there has been a Palestinian presence in Silwan for the past 1,300 years is ignored.

Although the first excavations to uncover the City of David were made in the 19th century, since the mid-1990s they have been happening apace, together with the development of facilities to create a tourist complex and park.

It's unfortunate but significant that no interest is shown in recovering the remains of other civilisations on the site.

In 1997 the Israel Land Authority handed the City of David project to a settler organisation, Elad, which as well as encouraging settlement in Silwan has extended the excavations to three areas of the village. They have also taken village land to build a Jewish cemetery.

These actions have resulted in the destruction of many Palestinian homes and facilities. The latter have included a mosque, a church, a sports and cultural centre, a park, schools and shops.

Tunnels are being dug underground, causing cracking and damage to Palestinian buildings situated over them.

More recently Elad has declared its intention to create King Solomon's Gardens in the al-Bustan area of the village, entailing the demolition of a further 88 Palestinian homes inhabited by 1,129 people.

Far from receiving any form of protection from the Israeli government, Palestinians are expected by law to pay for the demolition of their own properties or face imprisonment. The army oversees all demolitions.

The website of the US Ir David Foundation, which contributes between two and four million dollars a year to the project, confirms Elad's objectives by stating that the foundation "is committed to continuing King David's legacy ... and [to] connecting people to ancient Jerusalem's glorious past through four key initiatives, archaeological excavation, tourism development, educational programming and residential revitalisation."

Meanwhile, Palestinians are denied permission to "revitalise" Silwan by constructing more buildings in order to rehouse those residents made homeless.

The neighbourhood of Wadi Hilwe with a population of 5,500 has been granted just 15 building permits since 1967.

Grants of £13m yearly from the Israeli government allow the settlers to live comfortably, with ample educational and medical facilities, nursery schools, playgrounds, parks, community centres, attractive streets (with Hebrew names replacing the original Arabic) and spacious homes.

On the other hand the residents of Silwan pay high taxes but see no returns. Rubbish is piled high in the streets.

Forty per cent of the Palestinian schoolchildren have to queue for public transport every morning to attend schools outside the area as there are not enough school places.

Health facilities are inadequate, streets are in poor condition and community centres and parks, including Silwan's famous springs, have been destroyed.

Ahmad tells me that it was seeing children forced to use the streets as their playground that prompted him to open the Wadi Hilweh information centre, a community centre whose construction was funded by the German government and built in January 2012 by German volunteers.

The centre, now totally funded by various foreign NGOs, offers an impressive range of activities to keep children off the streets - music, art, mosaics, sewing, drama, languages, computing, table tennis, a successful football team and an eight-day summer camp, all free of charge.

For adults it offers free legal advice, a 24-hour helpline, a place to meet and a number of workshops.

Far from encouraging this initiative, a month after it was built the Jerusalem municipality ordered the demolition of the centre and a few weeks later it was bulldozed.

Ahmad describes his disappointment that the German government has made no response to the destruction of the centre.

However, with more funding and more volunteers from abroad, a new, bigger and better centre has been built on the same site.

It receives no funds from the Israeli government or the Jerusalem municipality.

"The only interest shown by the Israeli authorities," Ahmad adds, "is in the names of the teachers at the centre. So we rely a lot on foreign volunteers."

And what about the future? In the face of increasing attacks and demolitions, Ahmad is adamant that the people of Silwan will stand firm to protect their village, their lives and their families.

"It would help if an international committee could oversee all historical research and excavations taking place in east Jerusalem," he said. "But with 95 per cent of the Jewish Israeli population believing that Silwan should be renamed The City of David, such a development seems very unlikely."

So what remains to be done? Ahmad is hopeful for the long term.

"These lands have been occupied many times over the millennia," he tells me, "and each time the occupiers eventually have had to leave.

"Sooner or later the Israeli occupiers will leave too, but in the meantime, believe you me, we're staying put!"