On Monday January 18th, a Jerusalem court case over the legal ownership of a Palestinian owned house in the Sheik Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem was postponed until April. The hearing against the Husseini family was delayed because the prosecution, who claims the Palestinian family does not have legal ownership over their house, needed more time to build a case.
This case comes in the wake of two other neighborhood houses being occupied by Jewish settlers since late 2009 and constant settler harassment.
On Saturday, January 16, 2010 at 4:45PM a settler girl attacked a Palestinian girl in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheik Jarrah. The incident took place on the street between two houses occupied by Jewish settlers, which belong to the Palestinian Gawi and Al-Kurds families.
A large group of settlers, largely young men, boys and one girl began to gather and walked back forth and back between the two occupied houses.
Between 4:15 and 4:30PM the group gathered on the roof the Gawi family’s occupied house and began yelling and laughing at the Palestinians. The yelling continued and until the settlers left the house to confront the Palestinians on the street where one settler girl hit a Palestinian girl before the police separated the two groups. Shortly after, the settlers left the area.
This is just one of many instances of settlers harassing Palestinians in the Sheik Jarrah neighborhood. The harassment and violence has increased significantly since the occupation of the Gawi and Al-Kurds residences.
The Gawi house was taken over 5 months ago and the family, led by Nasser Gawi has lived in a tent on the street since. The Al-Kurds family, where the front half of the house was taken in December, still lives in the back of the house.