Tag: Jerusalem

On Monday September 15th 2008, the Muftah of Palestine and children from Shu’afaat orphanage visited the Al Kurd family to show their solidarity with the resistance Al Kurd and the 27 other families in Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood are putting up against Israel’s ethnic cleansing of occupied East Jerusalem.

50 children and grown ups broke fast together on the 15th day of Ramadan.

The orphanage in Shu’afaat refugee camp rewarded Kamel Al Kurd with a statuette of Palestine with her name engraved for strong and continues resistance against the occupation and ethnic cleansing in occupied East Jerusalem.

The approximately 50 people gathered in front of Al Kurd family home celebrated the break of the fast on the 15th day of Ramadan with a feast. Children from the orphanage in Shu’afaat enjoyed the fish and fries served. The Muftah of Palestine held a speech dedicated to the children about the meaning of Ramadan and the importance of unity and solidarity the Palestinian people in between, in relation to the meal the group had just shared.

Fawzia Al Kurd told the children about the struggle of the Palestinians living in Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood. She told about how the settler company Nahlat Shamon that falsely claims to own the land on which the house is build. She also spoke about how it has offered her 10 million US dollars for the small house her and her family have lived in for the last 50 years.

She told about how the settlers who have occupied half her families home have tried to set her up by placing a gun outside her home ones and money another time. How she avoided the set ups by calling the police and letting them remove both gun and money.

She also told about the time when 6 armed settler men broke into her house while her husband were in hospital after a stroke, likely to be caused by the stress the family are facing everyday.

She told the children about the importance of unity of the Palestinian people and thanked them for their solidarity. She also told them that they are not alone in their struggle and told how internationals from all over the world joining ISM share their values and stay in solidarity with the Palestinians in their struggle.

The Al Kurd family have lived in the house in Sheikh Jarrah since 1964 after they had to flee their childhood homes in Jaffah and West Jerusalem.
Their problems really started in 1985 when the Zionist settler organisation Nahlat Shemoun claimed ownership of the land.

Different Israeli settlers illegally live in the half of the house they have occupied from the Al Kurd family. They come during the day to occupy the space but the Israeli court has now giving the second order to evict them, they date is set to the 8th November.

Also the Al Kurd family have received an eviction notice from Israel after they renovated the house in order to make it possible for Fawzia’s husband to get around after his stroke.

The plan for the new Israeli neighborhood will form the missing link between the 12 illegal Israeli settlements consisting of 92,000 Israeli settlers in occupied Palestinian East Jerusalem.

The Al Kurd Family, residents of the East Jerusalem neighbourhood Sheikh Jarrah, have today won another trial in their struggle against settlers occupying their house. The Jerusalem District Court ordered the settlers to vacate the half of the Al Kurd family home they have occupied. This was the second judicial order issued to the settlers, following a previous Israeli Supreme Court order of February 2007. The District Court also reiterated the State of Israel’s obligation to enforce the order if ignored by the settlers.

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. The Al-Kurd family, refugees from Jaffa and West Jerusalem, initially moved into the neighborhood hoping to return to their homes (in Israel proper) under their international Right of Return. With the start of the Israeli occupation following the 1967 war, settlers started claiming ownership of the land the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood was build on.

Arguing 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. While the Al-Kurds family continued legal proceedings challenging the settlers claim, the settlers started filing suits against the Palestinian family.

In 2006, the court ruled the settlers claim void, recognizing it was based on fraudulent documents. Subsequently, the Al-Kurd family lawyer petitioned the Israeli Land Registrar to revoke the settlers registration of the land and state the correct owner of the land. Although it did revoke the settlers claim, the Israeli land Registrar refused to indicate the rightful owner of the land. This refusal is in clear defiance of the Courts ruling.

To further complicate the Al-Kurd family’s situation, settlers began occupying an extension of their home. Despite the fact that their claim to the land was revoked, settlers were given the keys of the Al-Kurds family home extension by the local, Israeli, municipality. This was possible after the municipality had confiscated the keys of the extension -to house the natural expansion of the Al-Kurd family- declaring its construction illegal.

In defiance of all logic, in July 2008 the Israeli Supreme Court ordered the eviction of the Al-Kurd family, for their refusal to pay rent to the settlers for use of the land. Although the settlers claim to the land had been revoked two years earlier, the court instead based their decision on an agreement made between a previous lawyer and the settlers. It should be noted that the Al-Kurd family -and the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood as a whole- rejected this agreement and fired their legal representative.

The Al-Kurd family situation is exemplary of Palestinians in East Jerusalem. While settlers continue to operate -in cooperation with the Israeli government, municipality and police- in defiance of the law, Palestinians are denied their rights. Palestinians are living in fear of arrest for refusing to pay rent to settler associations that do not own the land. Moreover, Palestinians’ houses are illegally occupied by settlers whom Israel refuses to remove.

At the same time, the settlers’ association Nahlat Shemoun has issued a proposal to demolish Sheikh Jarrah and built 200 settlement units. The European Union describes the Israeli Government’s actions in East Jerusalem as discriminatory and recognizes a “clear Israeli intention to turn the annexation of East Jerusalem into a concrete fact.” Israel unilaterally annexed East Jerusalem following the 1967 war, despite the illegality of such actions under international law.

In the neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah in East Jerusalem, 28 Families are facing the threat of eviction from their homes. In a process of Judaisation of East Jerusalem, Israel aims to erase the presence of 28 Palestinian families by forcefully evicting them from their homes. Israeli settlers have already occupied half the house of the Al Kurd family to enforce this policy of ethnic cleansing. The 24-hour presence of international solidarity activists has been organised for the last two months in the hope of offering support for the Al Kurds family home.

The neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah was constructed to house 28 refugee families that fled the violence of the 1948 war. This housing project was built by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) and the Jordanian Government in 1956. With the Israeli occupation following the 1967 war, settlers started claiming ownership of the land the neighbourhood was built on.

After long legal proceedings it was proved in 2006 the settlers did not, in fact, own the land and had produced false documents to support their claims. In 2001, however, settlers had already occupied half of the Al Kurds family home. Fearing settlers would expand into more houses in the neighbourhood, the Al Kurds family and the neighbourhood as a whole asked for help from local and international Human Rights groups. Since then, a 24-hour presence of Human Rights worker has delayed the further expansion of the settlers into other Palestinian homes.

Although an Israeli Supreme Court eviction order for the removal of the settlers from the Al Kurds family home has been issued on 25/02/2007, no action has been taken by the Israeli government. The neighbourhood has taken the settlers, part of the settler investment company Nahlat Shemoun, to court again. Today the court ruled in favour of the Al-Kurd family again.

The threat of ethnic cleansing Sheikh Jarrah faces is part of a larger Israeli project to increase the Jewish population of East Jerusalem. Although East Jerusalem is internationally recognized as located in the occupied Palestinian West Bank, it has been excluded from the West Bank by the construction of the illegal Apartheid Wall. As a result of Israeli policies, the Palestinian population of East Jerusalem has already decreased by 25%. If successful, the result of the ethnic cleansing of the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood will be the annexation of East Jerusalem by Israel. Then, Israel will claim an undivided Jerusalem as their capital.

For more information, visit http://www.sheikhjarrah.com/

Since an order issued by the Israeli Supreme court on July 16, 2008 to evict the Al-Kurd family from their home, located in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of Jerusalem, neighbors, friends and international solidarity activists have maintained a strong presence at the house to show their support for the family.

By day members of the community visit with the family, while by night internationals sleep at the home. The internationals, consisting of at least six ISMers every night, are prepared to physically prevent the Israeli police or army from evicting the Al-Kurd family by creating a blockade in front of the house. The intention of asserting international presence is an attempt to prevent the family from being removed from their home and to raise awareness in the media about the injustices committed against the Al-Kurd.

The issue of evicting Palestinians from their Jerusalem homes has entered the media in recent weeks. Al Jazeera, Condoleeza Rice, Haaretz, the Palestinian News Network, and online news sources such as Yahoo and MSN have made mentions of this contentious issue. Most have highlighted the injustices being presently committed.

The Al-Kurd family are just one family out of twenty-seven that have fought in the Israeli courts for their home. The Al-Kurd’s house is part of a housing project that was built by the United Nations Refugee and Welfare Association (UNRWA) along with the Jordanian government to house twenty-eight families who had fled their homes during the Nakba. Shortly after the Six Day War in 1967, two groups of Jewish settlers (Oriental Jews Association and Knesset Yisrael Association) were successful in falsely claiming the property. In 1972, they registered the land, twenty-eight dunums, in their name with the Israeli Land Registrar. The families were brought to court by the settler associations in 1982 and without their consent, their lawyer (Tosya Cohen) reached an agreement to exchange the land for granting the families the status of protected citizens under Israeli law.

The families, having refused to pay rent to the settler associations, received an evictions notice. Further investigations led to clear indications that the settler associations did not legally own the land but the land registrar refused to conduct a rezoning of the area necessary to declare the rightful ownership of the land. The family had no option left but to turn to the Israeli Supreme Court, which made its decision on the false 1982 agreement without regard for new evidence since.

The community has shown its commitment through their continuous support for the Al Kurd family. Neighbors, friends and internationals have made a pledge to show their dedication to this critical issue. A stance against the evacuation of the Al-Kurd family will set a precedent for the other twenty-seven families. Demonstrating strength in numbers, the objectors to Israel’s eviction policies against Palestinians will persist in guarding the Al-Kurd family and home.