Tag: Eviction - Page 20 - International Solidarity Movement

Israeli forces evict the Hanoun and al-Ghawe families from their Sheikh Jarrah homes

UPDATE: Seven of the arrested activists were released after court, with a condition to not be in Sheikh Jarrah for 3 weeks. One American solidarity activist has been taken to the immigration prison for deportation.

Another international activist is reportedly refusing to give her name and intends to go on hunger-strike, according to the released activists who were in detention with her.

Rami Hannoun is being treated at a local hospital after being beaten by Israeli forces.

For Immediate Release:

2 August 2009: Israeli forces have evicted the Hanoun and al-Ghawe families from their homes.

At around 5:30 in the morning, Israeli police arrived at the Hannoun family home and broke into the house through the windows. They forcefully removed Maher Hanoun, his wife Nadia and their 3 children. The police violently separated the family from the international and Israeli solidarity activists that were staying in the home. Police then arrested the international and Israeli solidarity activists that were staying with the family. Similarly, Israeli police came into the al-Ghawe family home at 5:30am and removed the family and internationals staying in the home.

Settlers arrived with a truck and began to move the al-Gwahe Hannoun family possessions out of their home. Everyone outside of the house was forced across the street, away from the house.

According to eyewitnesses, Israeli forces beat a Palestinian male who was trying to intervene when police were yelling at an elderly Palestinian woman. Additionally, media personnel were pushed around by police when they were trying to get close to the evicted Sheikh Jarrah homes.

Amongst those arrested are at least 7 international activists and 1 Israeli activist. They are scheduled to be brought to court in Jerusalem at 11am.

Maher Hannoun, Palestinian resident of Sheikh Jarrah:

Despite condemnation from the international community about the evictions of my neighborhood, Sheikh Jarrah, the Israeli government continues to pursue the ethnic cleansing of East Jerusalem. My family were refugees from 1948 and now we have become refugees again. We were forced out of homes to make way for settlers, contrary to international law. The legal case that residents presented in court included an Ottoman-era document which discounts the settler associations claim of ownership over Sheikh Jarrah land and homes. But the unjust policies of Israel to judaize East Jerusalem render our legal proof of ownership irrelevant.

Jody McIntyre, a British solidarity activist:

I woke up to the sound of a brick through the front window. By the time I could get up, I was being pushed out the door by Israeli forces. They wouldn’t allow me to take my wheelchair and were physically violent towards me and the others in the Hannoun house. The unjust policies of the Israeli government are not just written documents, they affect real families. The government has made the Hannoun and al-Ghawe families homeless, and their only crime is being Palestinian in a system that is racist against them.

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 built 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 of Sheikh Jarrah 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.

In 2004 Nadav Shargai from Ha’aretz reported that: “A process of Judaization has already begun . The compound is currently, and
gradually, being cleared of its Arab population by means of legal procedures.” (http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml? itemNo=481362&contrassID=1&subContrassID=7&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y)

Protest over Sheikh Jarrah house continues

Abe Selig | The Jerusalem Post

27 July 2009

A woman was arrested in east Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood on Monday evening, after a scuffle broke out between police and foreign left-wing activists who were protesting the entry of Jews into a nearby home the previous day.

The house is the subject of a legal dispute in which the Jewish claimants, who say they purchased the property legally, have been granted the right to enter the premises, although a stop work order had been issued for the property and was scheduled to take effect at 5 p.m. on Tuesday.

Sheikh Jarrah residents, however, said on Monday that the home had belonged to an elderly woman, Mrs. Hijazi, who had recently passed away, and that the Jewish claimants had falsified their ownership papers for the house.

“We have papers dating back to the Turkish government that show this home to be Palestinian property,” said Mitri Nasrawi, who works for the Coalition for Jerusalem, a Palestinian group.

Monday’s protest followed a larger demonstration in front of the house on Sunday afternoon, in which seven people were arrested – including a former Palestinian Authority minister for Jerusalem affairs, Hatem Abdel Kader – after activists and Arab residents clashed with police and the Jews, who had arrived to begin renovating the property.

Activists and locals residents said on Monday they would not stop their protests until the group of Jews had left.

Yelling “settlers out!” and “thieves!” the protesters congregated outside the home as police barred them from entering.

After more than an hour, police began to push back the demonstrators, who were banging on sheet metal walls that had been set up around the property, setting off the scuffle.

“You’re terrorists!” some of the activists yelled as police began to clear the area. “We are here because you are fascists and terrorists!”

But the feelings of local residents ran the gamut from dismay over the new Jewish presence in their neighborhood to downright outrage.

One elderly man approached an Israeli reporter and asked him if “he was a Jew.”

“Yes,” the reporter replied, as the man made a disgusted hand gesture and walked away.

“I don’t have any problem with Jews, I work with them and grew up around them,” another resident, Osama Kedek, told The Jerusalem Post on Monday. “But this is just a provocation here. What would happen if a secular Jew went to live in Mea She’arim? I think there would be protests there as well.”

Kedek also said that while he appreciated the concern of the foreign activists, “it would be better if they used their energy to show their governments what Israel is doing to our neighborhoods.”

A handful of foreign reporters and even a French Embassy worker were on hand to document the demonstration.

Etgar Lefkovits contributed to this report.

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

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.

U.S. warns Israel: Don’t build up West Bank corridor

Aluf Benn | Ha’aretz

24 July 2009

The U.S. administration has issued a stiff warning to Israel not to build in the area known as E-1, which lies between Jerusalem and the West Bank settlement of Ma’aleh Adumim. Any change in the status quo in E-1 would be “extremely damaging,” even “corrosive,” the message said.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed in the past to finally build the controversial E-1 housing project – as have several premiers before him, though none has done so due to American pressure. He opened his recent election campaign with a visit to Ma’aleh Adumim in which he declared: “I will link Jerusalem to Ma’aleh Adumim via the Mevasseret Adumim neighborhood, E-1. I want to see one continuous string of built-up Jewish neighborhoods.”

He has also warned in the past that failure to build in E-1 would allow the Palestinians to create territorial contiguity around Jerusalem.

Just before his government was installed this spring, the media reported that Netanyahu had reached an agreement with his largest coalition partner, Yisrael Beiteinu, to unfreeze construction in E-1. However, that clause was ultimately not included in the coalition agreement.

The plans for E-1 call for building 3,500 housing units, along with commercial areas and tourism sites, to create a single urban expanse stretching from Jerusalem to Ma’aleh Adumim and strengthen Israel’s hold on East Jerusalem, which would then be completely surrounded by Jewish neighborhoods.

The United States has always vehemently opposed this plan, fearing it would deprive a future Palestinian state of territorial contiguity, cut the West Bank in two and sever East Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank – all of which would thwart any hope of signing a final-status agreement and establishing a Palestinian state.

President Barack Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush, vigorously opposed building in E-1 during the terms of prime ministers Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert. Sharon did approve construction of a police station in E-1, and under Olmert, infrastructure work in the area continued. But neither ever approved construction of either the residential units or the commercial buildings, for fear of a confrontation with the United States.

Four years ago, after resigning from Sharon’s government, Netanyahu attacked him for giving in to American pressure on E-1. “A sovereign government must build in its eternal capital,” he said. “Sharon set a precedent that will lead to the division of Jerusalem.”

The Obama’s administration – which opposes all construction in East Jerusalem, even of a few houses – would be even more outraged by a large-scale project such as E-1.

It is demanding a moratorium on Jewish building in East Jerusalem until an agreement is reached on the city’s legal status, arguing that the cumulative effect of even small-scale projects would destroy any chance of a peace agreement and arouse fierce opposition in the Arab world, especially among East Jerusalem Arabs. Small projects include the construction of 20 apartments in the Shepherd Hotel in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood or plans to build new Jewish housing in Silwan.

At Sunday’s cabinet meeting, however, Netanyahu rejected this American stance. “United Jerusalem is the capital of the Jewish people and the State of Israel. Our sovereignty in it is not subject to appeal, and among other things, this means that Jerusalem residents can buy apartments anywhere in the city,” he said. “We cannot accept the idea that Jews should not have the right to live and buy anywhere in Jerusalem.”

Next week, three senior American officials will visit Israel: special envoy George Mitchell, National Security Advisor James Jones and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. Mitchell will continue his efforts to reach agreement on a settlement freeze, including in East Jerusalem, while the other two will focus on the Iranian threat.

Dozens protest east Jerusalem eviction plans

Ronen Medzini | YNet News

19 July 2009

Maher Hanoun, a resident of the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in east Jerusalem, has been ordered by court to vacate his home. Dozens of the neighborhood’s residents, as well as Jewish and Arab politicians and human rights activists arrived at Hanoun’s house on Sunday to protest the court’s decision.

Earlier Sunday it was reported that the US is pressuring Israel to halt the development of a planned hotel in Sheikh Jarrah.

The protestors held up a poster carrying US President Barack Obama’s image and the caption in English, “President Obama, yes you can – stop the evictions and house demolitions in east Jerusalem.”

“My responsibility is to protect my house, in which I was born in 1956, and to protect my children who were also born here,” said Hanoun. “Should they evacuate us, we have no place else to go. We ask everybody to help the families of Sheikh Jarrah.”

Hatem Abdel-Qader, who several weeks ago resigned from his post as Palestinian Authority minister for Jerusalem affairs, told Ynet: “The Americans are pressuring Israel to suspend all changes in the status quo and not to build a settlement at the Sheppard Hotel. The area in question is Palestinian and is under Israeli occupation. We hope that the American pressure will yield results.”

Abdel-Qader added: “We are here to support the Hanoun family and send a message to the whole world – the decision to raze houses and build a settlement is illegal.”

‘Attempt to Judaize east Jerusalem’

The former minister believes that the US can have tremendous influence on the issue. “Who else can do it but Obama? However, we need more than speeches; we need real pressure that would stop the Israelis actions in east Jerusalem.”

Jerusalem City Council member for Meretz Meir Margalit also attended the rally Sunday. “The Sheppard Hotel is another part of a larger effort of the Israeli government to promote the Judaization of the eastern city, sometimes directly and sometimes through settlers,” he said.

According to Margalit, “The goal is to take over as many properties in the eastern city as possible, in a bid to create a situation in which most of the area could be claimed as Jewish according to the Clinton outline (under which in the event of a peace agreement and land exchange, areas where there is a Jewish majority will remain in Jewish hands, and vice versa).

“The Americans understand that there is a broad strategic plan here, whose purpose is to change the demographic balance in the area. They therefore ant to stop it before it’s too late,” he concluded.