The Israeli district court in the holy city has issued a verdict to evict six Jerusalemite families from their homes in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of occupied east Jerusalem where they have lived for almost 70 years to make way for Jewish settlers.
Israeli NGO Peace Now said in a statement on Tuesday that the Jerusalemite families comprised of 27 people living in four houses were notified of the decision on Monday and were given until May 2 to vacate their homes.
The organization described the court decision as part of an organized move designed to dispossess a Palestinian community of its homes and establish a Jewish neighborhood in Sheikh Jarrah.
Hundreds of Palestinians living in Sheikh Jarrah are facing similar court proceedings along with hundreds more in the neighborhood of Batan al-Hawa in the east Jerusalem district of Silwan.
The Jerusalem magistrate court last week issued a ruling ordering the expulsion of four Jerusalemite families from their home in Batan al-Hawa.
From the beginning of 2020 until today Israeli courts have ordered the eviction of 36 Palestinian families composed of 165 people including dozens of children. In 14 eviction claims the courts have targeted 107 people from 20 families in Batan al-Hawa and 58 people from 13 families in Sheikh Jarrah according to Peace Now.
All the families have filed appeals and are in various stages of hearings in both the district court and the high court.
Meanwhile dozens of other families are in proceedings and may receive eviction verdicts soon with Peace Now warning of mass expulsions in the coming months.
“The story here is not legal but political” Peace Now underlined. “The court is only the tool by which settlers use with the close assistance of state authorities to commit the crime of displacing an entire community and replacing it with a settlement.”
In another incident the Israeli occupation authority (IOA) on Tuesday removed a barbed wire fence from around a Palestinian-owned piece of land in Jabel Mukaber neighborhood in east Jerusalem and demolished a house fence and building foundations in Ras Kabsa area of Silwan district south of the Aqsa Mosque.
A family of four individuals including children was living in that house in Ras Kabsa area of Silwan.
