The Israeli occupation forces (IOF) on Sunday stormed a Palestinian house whose residents threatened with eviction in the Old City of Jerusalem as a prelude to allowing Jewish settlers to move in.
According to local sources Israeli police forces broke into the house of Abu Assab family in Aqabat al-Khalidiya quarter in the Old City while other forces encircled the house and closed the road leading to it.
Hatem Abu Assab who lives with his family in the house had already received a notice ordering him to evacuate the house but he managed through his lawyer to postpone the eviction order until February 28.
The family of Abu Assab have been living in this house for more than 56 years and made several appeals to the Palestinian residents of Jerusalem and different institutions to help it stand against the Israeli decision to expel it from the house.
The family came to the Old City of Jerusalem after it was forcibly displaced from al-Baqa’a neighborhood in western Jerusalem in 1948 following the Deir Yassin massacre.
After they were displaced from western Jerusalem the grandparents of the family lived in a room in Bab al-Amoud neighborhood of the Old City before moving to the current house in 1952 which they shared with the family of Tufaha. Later the Tufaha family moved to another place.
The Israeli occupation authority uses the absentees’ property law which it enacted to justify its decision to evict the family from the house.
