The Israeli District Court in Jerusalem last night rejected an appeal by four Palestinian families living in the neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, in occupied East Jerusalem, and upheld the eviction order, in favor of Jewish settlers, the Wadi Hilweh Information Center reported.
The court gave the four families until May 2 to implement the eviction decision.
YESTERDAY: Palestinian and Israeli activists stand outside the Jerusalem District Court, protesting against house evictions of Palestinian families in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in favor of Israeli settlers. Photos by Activestills. pic.twitter.com/LY9Jui3gib
— Activestills (@activestills) February 10, 2021
Wadi Hilweh quoted the families’ lawyer, Sami Irsheid, saying the District Court upheld the October ruling of the Magistrates Court in favor of evicting Skafi, Kurd, Jaouni, and Qassem families from their homes following a lawsuit filed by Israeli settlers claiming that the land where the houses are located was owned by Jews prior to the 1948 Arab-Israeli war that ended in Israel occupying most of Palestine and displacing three-quarters of its citizens who became refugees until today.
Irsheid added that Jewish settler organizations, which claimed ownership of the land where the homes are located, have registered it in the Israeli lands department as their own.
#UK Parliamentarians Call on #Israel to Stop #Dispossession in #EastJerusalem (FULL TEXT) https://t.co/6Fo9B9G39E via @PalestineChron https://t.co/uDaJH7vrlo pic.twitter.com/gnKpo1RniL
— The Palestine Chronicle (@PalestineChron) February 13, 2021
The District Court refused to allow discussion of ownership of the land despite attempts by the lawyers to prove that the settlers do not own the land on which the housing project was built in 1956 by the Jordanian government and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) for the Palestinians displaced following the Israeli occupation in 1948.
The families plan to appeal their case to the Israeli High Court.
More than 80 British parliamentarians representing all parties, in both the House of Commons and the House of Lords, recently wrote in a letter to the British Foreign Secretary, Dominic Raab, that the British government must do everything in its power to prevent the mass/forced evictions and dispossession of Palestinian families in occupied East Jerusalem, making a case for the Palestinian families in Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood.
(WAFA, PC, Social Media)
