An Israeli court on Wednesday ordered the eviction of Palestinian families from a building in Silwan district’s Batan al-Hawa neighborhood east of Occupied Jerusalem at the pretext that it belonged to Jews in the past.
The order was issued in response to another eviction petition filed by Ateret Cohanim a settler group seeking to increase the Jewish presence in east Jerusalem and the eviction of hundreds of Palestinians from the eastern part of the city.
According to the Wadi Hilweh Information Center in Silwan the order was issued by the Israeli magistrate court in Jerusalem and would lead to the evacuation of the families of Odeh and Shuweiki who own the building.
The court rejected all the objections put forward by the families against previous court eviction notices it received in 2018 from Ateret Cohanim which claimed that the families had built their apartment building on land that was owned by Yemenite Jews before Israel’s establishment in 1948.
The court gave the families until mid-August to evacuate the building.
Following multiple legal claims filed by Ateret Cohanim the same court recently issued eviction orders against many Jerusalemite families living in Batan al-Hawa neighborhood.
84 Palestinian families living in Baten al-Hawa neighborhood received during the past years court eviction notices or orders.
All the families in this neighborhood have been fighting lengthy and costly legal battles to prove their right to the lands their grandparents had bought from previous owners.
