“In a matter of just two weeks, six Palestinian families, numbering 27 people, will be thrown out of their homes and into the street, and replaced with Israeli settlers [after] an Israeli district court rejected their appeal in February this year, ordering them to vacate their homes by May 2, 2021.”
“Another appeal filed by seven other families in Sheikh Jarrah, numbering 31 people, eight of them children, was rejected by the same Israeli district court in March, and the families were given until August 1, 2021, to evacuate their homes.”
“If the families do not leave their homes, where they have lived for the better part of 65 years, they will be forcibly removed by armed Israeli authorities, just like their neighbors before them. “
“Over the years, dozens of the families’ relatives, friends, and neighbors have been evicted and replaced with Israeli settlers, as per Israeli court orders.”
“In 2002, 43 Palestinians from the neighborhood were forcibly evicted after losing a legal battle to the Israeli settlers; in 2008, videos of the al-Kurd family having half their home being taken over by a group of settlers made international headlines; in 2009, the Hanoun and Ghawi families were kicked out of their homes; and in 2017, the Shamasneh family faced a similar fate, as the eight family members, including 75-year-old Fahamiya Shamasneh and her 84-year-old husband Ayoub were removed from their home.”
“The looming deadline for the May 2 eviction is one that’s weighing heavy on 22-year-old writer and poet Mohammed el-Kurd, who was just 11 years old when his family had their belongings thrown into the street, and half of his home was taken over by a group of Israeli settlers.”
“To this day, all that separates the Israeli settlers from the el-Kurd family is drywall, and a clothesline hanging in the courtyard. In just two weeks, however, what little of their home they have managed to hold on to, could be snatched from them once again.”
“The story of Sheikh Jarrah and its residents dates back to 1948, when the state of Israel was established and as a result, the Nakba, or ‘catastrophe’ in Arabic, of the Palestinian people came about.”
“Following the Nakba, Israel enacted the Absentees’ Property Law of 1950, regulating the property of Palestinians who, as a result of the Nakba, were abroad, forced to flee, or exiled.”
“The law defined Palestinian refugees and other displaced persons, including those who only fled to locations a few kilometers away from their original homes, as “absentees,” therefor assigning their properties for appropriation of the state.”
“A number of refugees from coastal towns like Haifa and Yaffa eventually settled in Jerusalem, where they sought refuge in the Palestinians communities that remained in the wake of the Nakba.”
“One of those refugees was Rifqa el-Kurd, the grandmother of Mohammed el-Kurd. In 1956, her young family was one of 28 Palestinian refugee families who were offered a home in the Karm Al-Ja’ouni area of Sheikh Jarrah, as part of an agreement between Jordanian government and UNRWA, the UN agency established for the protection of Palestinian refugees.”
“The new housing project was established on land previously leased by two small Jewish communities, who fled the majority Palestinian area during the Nakba.”
“As part of the resettlement project, the agreement between Jordan and UNRWA stipulated that the 28 families would receive legal title to the properties within three years, which never happened.”
After decades of legal manipulations, the case was taken up by “Nahalat Shimon International, a right-wing settler organization whose mission seeks to replace as many Palestinians in East Jerusalem as it can with Israeli settlers”.
“Until now, the group has been successful in every one of their endeavors in the neighborhood, and with the backing of the Israeli district court and full support of the Israeli authorities, have displaced more than 67 Palestinians from Sheikh Jarrah, and continue to seek the imminent displacement of around 87 more.”
“As yet another deadline for their forced eviction looms, the remaining Palestinian residents in Sheikh Jarrah are doing everything they can to bring international attention to their case, and ideally international pressure on Israel along with it, with the campaign to #SaveSheikhJarrah.“
Read more: ‘It is a Nakba’: Campaign to save Sheikh Jarrah builds momentum as forced displacement looms
2021-week20
