Tag: Eviction

East Jerusalem: the indignity and illegality of eviction

Mary Robinson | The Elders

2 September 2009

As our visit to the Middle East was ending, one of the most poignant encounters we had was with Maher Hanoun and his family in East Jerusalem. For several nights three generations of Hanouns have been sleeping in the street – the women and children in cars and the men encamped on the pavement. They were evicted from their homes in Sheikh Jarrah, East Jerusalem on 2 August 2009 following an Israeli court ruling.

We brought the family food and drink for Iftar, a special time for Muslims during the month of Ramadan as it is the evening meal at which their daily fast is broken. The moment was rendered even more moving as we heard of the difficulties that the Hanouns have experienced since their eviction.

The family are refugees who have lived in their home in Sheik Jarrah since 1948. Now they have not only been evicted, but have watched Jewish families being shown the property and encouraged to move into a home that for generations they called their own.

These houses are situated in occupied East Jerusalem. The Palestinian families that lived in these buildings did so legally, and their presence is supported by international law. This is encapsulated in UN Security Council resolutions 446 and 478 which call upon Israel not to transfer members of its civilian population into occupied Arab territories or to change the character and status of Jerusalem.

To its discredit, the Israeli legal system – to which Palestinians have limited and unequal access – has been used by some settler groups to claim ownership of property purportedly belonging to Jews prior to 1948. The decisions taken by the Israeli courts have sustained the claims of settlers and offer Palestinians no recourse to reclaim their rights to lost land or property.

My fellow Elder Jimmy Carter was unambiguous in his statement that the eviction of Palestinians such as the Hanouns from East Jerusalem “is a political issue… It’s an attempt by Israel to take over East Jerusalem, which is part of Palestine”. I wholeheartedly agree, and was encouraged to know that several Israeli human rights groups and advocates also agree.

Such enforced evictions are utterly unacceptable; it is no exaggeration to state that this kind of action could be a serious obstacle to a successful negotiation of a two-state solution. The Hanoun family do not have fair and equal access to the Israeli legal system – nor are they the only ones to have been treated this way. The international community and all those in Israel and Palestine who believe in the importance of the rule of law should support their cause and speak out against this infringement of Palestinians’ fundamental human rights.

Sheikh Jarrah residents demonstrate against house evictions

29 August 2009

Sheikh Jarrah residents demonstrate against the ethnic cleansing of East Jerusalem
Sheikh Jarrah residents demonstrate against the ethnic cleansing of East Jerusalem

Two events were held in East Jerusalem on the evening of Saturday, 29th August, to condemn the recent eviction of two Palestinian families from the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, as well as the continuing colonization and land confiscation in the city, practices which are illegal under international law.

A protest organized by the Coalition for Jerusalem was held at 20:30 in front of Damascus Gate just outside the old city, attended by both Palestinians and Israelis as well as international activists. This was followed by a candlelit march of about 30 attendants of the demo, through the streets of East Jerusalem towards the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood.

The march was terminated in front of the recently occupied house of the Al-Gawi family in the neighborhood, in the street where the family has been living and sleeping ever since. It was met there by a large group of 200 to 300 protesters, in a second demonstration organized by the group ‘Rabbis for human rights’. The event had a festive atmosphere, with Palestinian singing, music and dancing, and lasted until well in the night, finishing about half an hour before midnight.

A large force of police and military units oversaw the event from a distance together with security from inside the occupied house, but did not significantly disturb the participants and the event.

Evicted Palestinians camp by home taken by settlers

Jihan Abdalla | The Washington Post

25 August 2009

Fresh dates and chicken soup were served up at dusk on the sidewalk in the well-heeled suburb of Sheik Jarrah this week, as the evicted Palestinian al-Ghawi family spent another night camped outside their former home.

Their stone house in Arab east Jerusalem, in a district of consulates and trendy restaurants, is now home to Jewish settlers, who moved in as they were being kicked out on Aug 2.

The furniture and belongings of the seven-member family were tossed on the street. Their neighbor offered shelter.

But the al-Ghawis refuse to give up and go away. On the third day of Ramadan, when the world’s one billion Muslims fast from dawn to dusk, they gathered with a group of supporters for the traditional evening meal.

Eaten exactly at dusk to break a day of fasting, iftar — Arabic for breakfast — is usually a home-cooked meal eaten inside the home.

The al-Ghawis had takeout, on the sidewalk.

Israel annexed East Jerusalem after the 1967 Middle East war, a move never recognized internationally. Some 200,000 Jews now live here, alongside about 250,000 Palestinians.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, asserting a biblical claim to Jerusalem, has said Jews have a right to live anywhere in the city. Palestinians want East Jerusalem to be the capital of a state they hope to create in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

The evicted families are descendants of refugees who came to the area in 1956, according to the Israeli organization Ir Amim, which monitors — and opposes — Jewish settlement in East Jerusalem.

19TH CENTURY

In legal proceedings stretching back to the 1980s, Palestinians have disputed the Jewish claim in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood which has become a focal point of Jewish settler development plans in East Jerusalem.

Israeli police who turned the family out of their home said they were acting on eviction orders issued by an Israeli court, which had upheld a settler organization’s land ownership claim based on 19th-century documents.

Settlers have moved into six other buildings. Armed men guard the stone houses where settlers have hoisted Israeli flags.

Along with Israel’s demolition of what it deems illegal Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem, evictions here have become a further irritant in Israel’s relations with Washington, already strained by the dispute over Israel’s settlement activities in the occupied West Bank.

Among supporters of the evicted family on Monday evening was Rafiq al-Husseini, chief of staff of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

“We are here to make sure that they don’t have iftar on their own, that we are in full support and solidarity with them,” he told Reuters in a makeshift protest tent outside the house.

Fifteen minutes before the minaret’s call to eat, Nasser al-Ghawi set the table with packaged food, plastic silverware, and bottled water — a donation from a nearby restaurant.

The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Mohammed Hussein, was also present for the symbolic iftar meal and celebration.

“We would like to tell the world that we are here, yes, on the street, but we are in front of it. And we cling to our right to these homes, and we don’t accept an alternative. Eventually, justice must and will come,” he said.

Maysoon al-Ghawi, mother of five, said losing her home has changed her outlook on the future.

“Our dreams and our plans for the future have all been canceled,” she said, cradling two-year-old Sarah.

Ramadan, she said, is supposed to be a stable time for the family to spend time together, the time to buy the children promised toys, and new clothes. Instead, she must go to her neighbor’s home to bathe them and wash their clothes.

“I feel incompetent and incapable of doing anything for my children, because I have nothing left,” she said.

With summer nearly over, and school about to begin, Maysoon said she had still not bought her children’s schoolbooks.

“Where would I put them? On the street?”

(Editing by Douglas Hamilton and Charles Dick)

Candle vigil in solidarity with evicted Palestinian families held in Sheikh Jarrah

10 August 2009

At 8pm, around 200 Palestinians, Israelis and international solidarity activists congregated outside the evicted homes of the Hanoun family. Under the presence of the Israeli police, the demonstrators lit candles which illuminated signs and posters condemning the evictions and demanding their homes back. Peacefully, people sang and spoke whilst traffic tooted their horns in support of the families.

As demonstrators began to march towards the al Gwahi home around 9pm (another home that was evicted and is currently being occupied by settlers), the police violently attacked people walking on the sidewalk, dragging kicking and beating them as they pulled them back along the street towards their vehicles. Police units dressed in all black charged through to lend a hand and eventually forced Arik Asherman of the Rabbis for Human Rights into a police van, which hastily left the scene. When things calmed down, an announcement was made that the peaceful protest was an illegal one and everyone had two minutes to leave the area. Taking that as their cue, the protesters regrouped and once again moved towards the home of the Al Ghawi family where they were met with a police blockade. The vigil continued with two groups in separate spaces on the streets with the space in between occupied by settler youth mixing with the police and border police.

As settlers exited their settlement through the groups people jeered and whistled but the candle lit peacefulness prevailed, despite the best efforts of the police. Eventually the banners, posters and protesters made their way back to the space outside on the street where the families are now living and are joined overnight by friends, family and international support.

Evicted Palestinians sleep rough in protest

Jacky Rowland | Al Jazeera

7 August 2009

The Hanouns, a Palestinian family evicted by Israeli authorities from their home in East Jerusalem, are protesting their eviction by sleeping on the street outside the house that was for decades their home.

Al Jazeera’s Jacky Rowland reports from the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood in occupied East Jerusalem where the Hanouns are sleeping rough in protest.