House Evictions in Jerusalem and the Key under the Bed….

By Stefania R.

The area of Sheikh Jarrah is only one of the areas in East Jerusalem affected by these notices, where people do not sleep at night because there is always the chance that settlers and the police will come at dawn and they want to resist until the last second before they will be forced to evacuate their houses.

This is what happened to Fawziya Khurd and her husband, when settlers and the police came at 4 o’clock in the morning and left them on the street. From November 19th, 2008 the couple—both in their sixties—began to live in a tent close to their house. Soon after, the husband died of a heart attack.

Sheikh Jarrah, East Jerusalem. Fawziya Khurd has been living in this tent since November 08, date of her eviction

Picture: Palestine Monitor - Stefania R.

Even though the tent has been destroyed 11 times by the Israeli Authorities, Fawziya Khurd is still living there—without electricity or water. To live alone in the middle of the street is the only form of public resistance that she can afford.

Once the eviction order has been issued, the police and the settlers can come during a period of 7 to 28 days; and they have also the right to confiscate all the belongings in the apartment. That is what happened to the Khurd family.

In her tent, Fawziya has only one bed and a few chairs; all her belongings have been confiscated and she can not afford to pay the bail demanded by the Israeli Authorities to release them.

If the situation in the Holy Land is hard to understand, in Jerusalem everything is even more complicated.

The area of Sheikh Jarrah is the subject of a strange judicial struggle that seems to have a very long history…

After the 1948 armistice, this area was inside the Green Line traced by Jordan, Israel and the United Nations. The contended area was the sovereignty of the King of Jordan and was populated by Palestinian Refugees. The Kurd`s apartment is part of a housing project built in 1956 by the Jordanian Government in cooperation with UNRWA to house 28 refugees families who fled their home in 1948.

According to the Palestinian inhabitants, after a few years of rent, the houses would have been registered. However, it was not done and with the upcoming war of 1967 the issue was forgotten. In the 1967`s war Israel occupied East Jerusalem, also without registering those properties as Palestinian.

Things remained the same for about 40 years and the inhabitants of the Sheikh Jarrah took care of their houses and land, doing everything possible to have a comfortable home to raise their children.

Around 5 years ago, Settler Organizations started to claim ownership of the land of Sheikh Jarrah, presenting ownership documents dating back from the Ottoman Empire—when the “Great Palestine” was still part of the Empire and the first Jewish Organizations were buying land for new Jewish families settling in to the Holy Land.

The Israeli Courts began to send eviction notices to some of the families living in Sheikh Jarrah, while the others families remain; knowing that for them it is now only a matter of time…

As a form of resistance, the residents created the Sheikh Jarrah Committee and are now trying every legal way to keep their houses. One of them, Mr. Maher Hanoun, has already served a three month prison sentence for refusing to evacuate his home.

Another resident, Huzana Lapoal along with her family, has divided the property in two different small apartments, and the family has been evicted twice. After the first eviction order the family went to the adjacent apartment, but in November the settlers created a hole in the common wall and took the second apartment as well.

According to the representative of the Committee, this is part of a wider project from the Jerusalem administration that wants to evacuate all the Palestinian families from the area, which is also the place of the grave of the famous rabbi Shimon Hatzadik. She spoke about the intention of the new mayor of Jerusalem to reduce the Palestinian population in the city from 60% to 12% , as well as an old project (from Sharon`s period) involving the construction of 2000 houses in East Jerusalem that will separate the West Bank from Ramallah to Hebron into two regions.

It is easy to understand these people’s frustration in a land where sometimes is impossible to free themselves from the conflict and it is sometimes impossible to distinguish between true and false…

At the moment Fawziya Khurd is the only one who is still living and demonstrating in a tent in Sheikh Jarrah. Other families decided to surrender, move to the West Bank and rent a cheaper apartment which means they will lose their right forever to enter Jerusalem.

Fawziya Khurd

Picture: Palestine Monitor - Stefania R.

But another problem, closely related to a history of permanent conflict and violence, is that even if sometimes a generous compensation is offered, it is really hard for people to accept.

First of all Jerusalem is, for both populations, the “eternal undivided capital” that they won’t compromise for national and emotional reasons. On the other hand, the money cannot be accepted because they might be punished with death. A few months ago a Palestinian man who accepted compensation to leave his house in East Jerusalem was decapitated and his body was been found close to Hebron.

If the situation in Jerusalem is becoming more and more complicated, and the new mayor Barkat doesn`t seem to care too much about international objection, the consequences of the housing emergency in East Jerusalem may spread beyond the borders of the Holy City.

What the Israeli Court is doing to support extremist Settler Organizations, by taking into consideration ownership documents dating back from the Ottoman Empire, could fuel Palestinian dreams of the famous “key under the bed”.

The right of return has been the constant lacking point during the last peace talks between Palestine and Israel, and while all the Israeli politicians are talking the urgency for peace, the entire Jerusalem administration seems to foster the roots of the disagreement.

Even though the inhabitants of Sheikh Jarrah are claiming that the old ownership documents are false, this is not the only important issue.

The main point is that because of the judicial precedent, all Israelis will be allowed to claim old properties, perhaps even from 300 years ago. However it is sure that the same right will not even be discussed for Palestinians that were living in Yaffo or Sderot or anywhere inside the Israeli borders only 60 years ago. Too many wars have changed the geo-political aspects of this land, and if nothing can be done to change the past suffering of both populations, it would be better to stop the conflict now and prepare the soil for new generations living in peace—not for new troubles.