Palestinian, Israeli, and foreign activists lift banners and placards during a demonstration against Israeli occupation and settlement activity in the Palestinian Territories and east Jerusalem, in Jerusalem's Palestinian Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood, on April 9, 2021 [AHMAD GHARABLI/AFP via Getty Images]
| Dozens of Palestinians are facing imminent dispossession from their homes in the occupied East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah, in what they say is a move to force them out and replace it entirely with an illegal Jewish settlement. The Jerusalem District Court ruled at least six families must vacate their homes in Sheikh Jarrah on Sunday, despite living there for generations. The same court ruled another seven families should leave their homes by August 1. In total, 58 people, including 17 children, are set to be forcibly displaced to make way for Jewish settlers. The court rulings are a culmination of a decades-long struggle for these Palestinians to stay in their homes. In 1972, several Jewish settler organisations filed a lawsuit against the Palestinian families living in Sheikh Jarrah, alleging the land originally belonged to Jews. These groups, mostly funded by donors from the United States, have waged a relentless battle that resulted in the displacement of 43 Palestinians in 2002, as well as the Hanoun and Ghawi families in 2008 and the Shamasneh family in 2017. Under international law, the Israeli judicial system has no legal authority over the population it occupies. Last month, an appeal by Palestinian human rights groups to the UN Special Procedures said Israel’s discriminatory legal foundation “provides the basis for its creation of an apartheid regime over the Palestinian people as a whole”. “Not only has Israel unlawfully extended its domestic civil legal system to occupied East Jerusalem, but proceeded to enact more discriminatory laws and policies that enforce the confiscation of Palestinian property in East Jerusalem in favour of settlers, the forcible transfer of Palestinians, and the expansion of Israeli-Jewish presence in the city,” the appeal said. Israel’s annexation of East Jerusalem is largely not recognised by the international community. Israel’s settlement project, which is aimed at the consolidation of Israel’s control over the city, is also considered illegal under international law. About 200,000 Israeli citizens live in East Jerusalem under army and police protection, with the largest single settlement complex housing 44,000 Israelis. (C) The Afro-Palestine Newswire Service |
