Settlers take over a Palestinian house in Sheikh Jarrah

Israeli Coalition Against House Demolitions (ICAHD)

27 July 2009

On July 26th a group of settlers led by Arie king took over a Palestinian house in Sheikh Jarrah to which they where given custody of in a very controversial decision of the Israeli court. While trying to prevent the settlers from taking over the house and demolishing it, 11 activists (three Palestinians, seven internationals and one Israeli) where arrested.

At about 11:30, with the support of police and army units, settlers came to demolish a home whose owner passed away recently. This is part of the settler organization’s larger campaign to dispose Palestinians of their land and to settle Jews in the East Jerusalem neighborhood, especially in the holy basin – the area which surrounds the old city of Jerusalem.

Activists at the scene attempted to non-violently prevent the entrance of the settler bulldozer into the home, an effort that was met with unrelenting force by the police and army, and ended with the violent arrest of the 11 activists. The activists were held and interrogated at Salah-Adin police station in Sheikh Jarrah, and 8 of them were transferred to the Russian compound and held overnight.

Currently, 28 families face eviction in the East Jerusalem neighborhood, and others have already been evicted and settlers now occupy their houses. Sheikh Jarrah is a Palestinian neighborhood, and the continued efforts by settlers to move Jews there is yet another way of creating “facts on the ground” and preventing any real, just solution from being reached in the future.

Relevant Links:

http://www.standupforjerusalem.org/index.php?action=innerp&id=4

Ni’lin demonstrates against the Apartheid Wall

24 July 2009

At 1 pm, after the Friday prayer, approximately 80 protesters gathered to demonstrate against the illegal Apartheid wall which Israel has built on Ni’lin land. Internationals and Israeli solidarity activists joined the residents of Ni’lin in their weekly demonstration against the Wall. The demonstration started in the outskirt of the village and walked through the olive fields towards the Wall. On the way people were singing and chanting carrying Palestinian flags. The demonstrators succeeded in reaching the Wall but were immediately forced back by multiple tear gas canisters shot from jeeps, some of them aimed very low risking serious injury. The Israeli armed forces continued to attack the protesters with an excessive amount of tear gas, sound bombs and also used chemical stinky water against the crowd Young men from the village responded by throwing stones .

The soldiers then breached the fence and advanced upwards towards the protest group whilst continuing to shoot tear gas and sound bombs. When the soldiers pulled back the demonstrators again returned to the Wall but where met with heavy use of low aimed tear gas and were once again forced away. Several suffered from tear gas inhalation and needed medical care; at least two were hit by tear gas canisters.

The protest ended at 3 pm.

Israeli forces commonly use tear-gas canisters, rubber coated steel bullets and live ammunition against demonstrators.

To date, Israeli occupation forces have murdered 5 Palestinian residents and critically injured 1 international solidarity activist during unarmed demonstrations in Ni’lin. In total, 19 people have been killed during demonstrations against the Wall.

  • 5 June 2009: Yousef Akil Srour (36) was shot in the chest with 0.22 caliber live ammunition and pronounced dead upon arrival at a Ramallah hospital.
  • 13 March 2009: Tristan Anderson (37), an American citizen, was shot in the head with a high velocity tear gas projectile. He is currently at Tel Hashomer hospital with an unknown
  • 28 December 2008: Mohammed Khawaje (20) was shot in the head with 5.56mm caliber live ammunition. He died in a Ramallah hospital 3 days later on 31 December 2008.
  • 28 December 2008: Arafat Rateb Khawaje (22) was shot in the back with 5.56mm caliber live ammunition and pronounced dead upon arrival at a Ramallah hospital.
  • 30 July 2008: Yousef Amira (17) was shot in the head with two rubber coated steel bullets. He died in a Ramallah hospital 5 days later on 4 August 2008.
  • 29 July 2008: Ahmed Mousa (10) was shot in the forehead with 5.56mm caliber live ammunition and pronounced dead upon arrival at a Ramallah hospital.

In total, 38 people have been shot by Israeli forces with live ammunition in Ni’lin: 9 were shot with 5.56mm caliber live ammunition and 29 were shot with 0.22 caliber live ammunition.

Since May 2008, residents of Ni’lin have been organizing and participating in unarmed demonstrations against construction of the Apartheid Wall. Despite being deemed illegal by the International Court of Justice in 2004, the Occupation continues to build the Wall, further annexing Palestinian land.

Ni’lin will lose approximately 2,500 dunums of agricultural land when construction of the Wall is completed. Israel annexed 40,000 of Ni’lin’s 58,000 dunums in 1948. After the occupation of the West Bank in 1967, the illegal settlements and infrastructure of Kiryat Sefer, Mattityahu and Maccabim were built on village lands and Ni’lin lost another 8,000 dunums. Of the remaining 10,000 dunums, the Occupation will confiscate 2,500 for the Wall and 200 for a tunnel to be built under the segregated settler-only road 446. Ni’lin will be left with 7,300 dunums.

The current entrance to the village will be closed and replaced by a tunnel to be built under Road 446. This tunnel will allow for the closure of the road to Palestinian vehicles, turning road 446 into a segregated settler-only road . Ni’lin will be effectively split into 2 parts (upper Ni’lin and lower Ni’lin), as road 446 runs between the village. The tunnel is designed to give Israeli occupation forces control of movement over Ni’lin residents, as it can be blocked with a single military vehicle.

A demonstration will be held outside the demolished Darwish Hijazi home in Sheikh Jarrah

UPDATE: All activists were given a condition to stay out of East Jerusalem for 3 weeks and will be released later today.

For Immediate Release:

4pm, Monday 27 July 2009: A demonstration will be held outside the Darwish Hijazi home to protest the demolition of the home and the ethnic cleansing of occupied East Jerusalem.

Palestinian residents of Sheikh Jarrah, along with international and Israeli solidarity activists, will hold a demonstration outside the Darwish Hijazi home in Sheikh Jarrah. On Sunday, 26 July 2009, 7 international activists, 1 Israeli activist and 2 Palestinians were arrested outside the Palestinian home.

Settlers had broken into the home and began to destroy the house from the inside. According to local residents, the Palestinian home owner had died a month ago, leaving no one inside the home to protect it. Around 12:30 pm, Israeli forces arrested a German national, an Australian national, a Scottish national, an Israeli and 2 Palestinians including former Minister of Jerusalem Affairs Hatim Abdul Qader, when they tried to block settlers from entering the home.

After they were taken to the police station on Salah al-Din street, settlers were able to enter the home. According to witnesses at the scene, settlers were destroying the house from the inside.

Around 3:30, Israeli forces arrested 2 American nationals and a British national, as they tried to enter the Palestinian home to stop the settlers from destroying it. They were also taken to the police station on Salah al-Din street.

The 7 internationals and 1 Israeli activist are still in detention and will likely have court on the morning of Monday, 27 July 2009.

The case of Sheikh Jarrah

The Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in East Jerusalem was built by the UN and Jordanian government in 1956 to house Palestinian refugees from the 1948 war. However, with the the start of the Israeli occupation of East Jerusalem, following the 1967 war, settlers began claiming ownership of the land the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood was build on.

Stating that they had purchased the land from a previous Ottoman owner in the 1800s, settlers claimed ownership of the land. In 1972 settlers successfully registered this claim with the Israeli Land Registrar.

The 28 families face eviction from their homes. In November 2008, the al-Kurd family was violently evicted from their home in Sheikh Jarrah. Two weeks thereafter, Mohammad al-Kurd died from a stress induced heart attack.

Currently, the Hannoun and the al-Ghawe families face eviction from their Sheikh Jarrah homes. However, all 28 families are battling eviction in Israeli court.

Two-day-old Silwan info center in jeopardy

Abe Selig | The Jerusalem Post

26 July 2009

“We built this place last Sunday, and on Tuesday, the police arrived with orders to knock it down,” said Ahmad Qara’een, as he sat inside the Wadi Hilwah Information Center, a 35-sq.m. covered wooden deck erected by residents of east Jerusalem’s Silwan neighborhood.

Qara’een does not dispute the lack of a building permit, although he does maintain that the center was built on privately-owned Palestinian land, with the consent of its owner.

The issue for Qara’een and his colleagues, who built the center to disseminate information about Silwan they say is not made available to the tourists who throng the area, is what they see as a double standard. A number of structures belonging to Jews in Silwan – some only a few doors down from the center – also lack permits, but the city has not issued demolition orders for them.

“It’s like a state within a state here,” Qara’een said. “The settlers get to do what they want, but we can’t have anything. It’s like the law doesn’t apply to them.”

The Jerusalem Municipality on Sunday disputed Qara’een’s assertion that the center had been slated for destruction, telling The Jerusalem Post, “They were not given demolition orders, just a notice that their building is illegal. Furthermore, the municipality is working in all areas of Jerusalem to enforce the law when it comes to illegal buildings.”

Still, Qara’een and others at the Wadi Hilwah Center said that permits were not the issue.

“This has nothing to do with permits,” said Nihad Siam, who works with Qara’een. “It’s all about politics and the desire of the government to shut us up and push us out of here.”

Silwan’s Wadi Hilwah neighborhood has emerged as one of the main points of friction between east Jerusalem’s Palestinians and Jewish residents, who are increasingly moving into eastern neighborhoods of the capital.

Silwan, just outside the Old City, has seen a rise in Jewish residents in recent years, many inhabiting homes purchased by the Elad and Ateret Cohanim organizations. Additionally, the city has drawn up plans to raze a significant number of homes in the area to begin work on a City of David archeological park – a move residents like Qara’een and Siam said would “turn the neighborhood into Hebron.”

“Is it my fault that I was born here?” asked Qara’een. “Is it my fault that King David walked here over 3,000 years ago? Why should I have to pay the price?”

A report released on Sunday by Peace Now, however, stated that “the hasty response of Israeli authorities to the opening of the makeshift Palestinian information center clearly points not only at the discriminatory use of law enforcement against Palestinians in East Jerusalem but also at an effort to silence the voices of the local residents.”

The report goes on to say that the “City of David Visitor’s Center, which is approximately 50 meters away from the Wadi Hilwah Information Center, and was established by the Elad organization, includes mobile and non-mobile structures including a shop, a cashier’s office, general office space and bathrooms.

“An application for a permit for these structures was submitted by Elad in November 2007, but was rejected by the municipality,” the report says.

Settlers occupy and damage Sheikh Jarrah home

Ma’an News

26 July 2009

Residents on Sunday tried unsuccessfully to prevent Israeli settlers and police from reaching a home owned by Palestinians in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem.

During the incident former Minister of Jerusalem Affairs Hatim Abdul Qader was detained, apparently while trying to block more attacks on a home that had earlier been ransacked by a group of rightist settlers.

The former minister had not been released by early afternoon on Sunday. Abdul Qader resigned his post earlier this month, but remains in charge of Jerusalem affairs within the Fatah movement.

Another Palestinian and eight foreign solidarity activists were also detained by Israeli forces operating in the area when, according to Ma’an’s correspondent, they tried to prevent settlers and police from occupying the home of Darwish Hijazi.

A number of local residents reportedly sat on the road leading to the home in an effort to stop Israeli bulldozers moving near the house, and Israeli policy attacks and injured several protesters, according to witnesses.

Dimitri Diliani, spokesman for Fatah in Jerusalem, and Abdul Qader were quoted as saying that residents were adamant about preventing settlers from occupying the Hijazi home.

Diliani added that dozens of Fatah activists had meanwhile managed to expel a group of settlers from a nearby piece of land, while Israeli police nonetheless brought backup forces and threatened to arrest protesters who refused to leave the area.

The arrests came just 48 hours after Abdul Qader warned on Friday that Israel risks provoking a new upheaval if it continues destroying Palestinian houses in East Jerusalem.

“After the incident of opening the tunnel in 1996 Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Natanyahu said that ‘no one warned me of the consequences of opening the tunnel and if I received a warning then I would not have done it,'” he said, referencing riots that cost 70 Palestinians and 17 Israeli soldiers their lives after the opening of the Western Wall tunnels.

“We are warning [Netanyahu] now of the consequences of the demolitions, because the consequences will surpass those of opening the tunnel in Jerusalem,” Abdul Qader said.

Abdul Qader made his remarks alongside hundreds of residents of the Bustan neighborhood in East Jerusalem’s Silwan area. Some 88 houses on the sliver of land near the Old City are slated for demolition because they were built without permits from the Israeli municipal authorities. But some of the structures were built before Israel occupied East Jerusalem in 1967.

The official alleged that Israeli authorities in Jerusalem are enabling settler groups to take control of Palestinian neighborhoods.