An Israeli court on Sunday issued a ruling in favor of the Ateret Cohanim settler group and ordered the eviction of five Palestinian families from their own homes in Silwan district east of Occupied Jerusalem.
The families to be evicted live in a five-story apartment building belonging to the family of Duweik in the Baten al-Hawa neighborhood of Silwan district. 25 individuals including children would be homeless if the court order was implemented.
Mazen Duweik one of the real estate owners stated that his grandfather had bought the land where the building was built in 1963 and since then his children and grandchildren have been living in it.
According to the Wadi Hilweh Information Center in Silwan the Jerusalem magistrate court rejected the objections that had been filed by the Duweik family against previous court eviction notices it received in 2014 from Ateret Cohanim and gave the family until next August to evacuate the building.
Ateret Cohanim claim the land on which the building was built belong to Jews who owned it in the past.
The same settler group won a similar lawsuit recently against the Jerusalemite family of Rajbi whose members have been living in Baten al-Hawa neighborhood since 1975.
84 Palestinian families living in Baten al-Hawa neighborhood received during the past years court eviction 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.
