The Israeli groups Peace Now and Ir Amim have recently released a joint report on Israel’s settlement expansion in Batan al-Hawa neighborhood of Silwan the most sensitive and volatile areas in Occupied Jerusalem.
The report titled “Broken Trust: State Involvement in Private Settlement in Batan Al-Hawa Silwan” describes how since 2001 the government-backed Ateret Cohanim settler organization has been working on transforming Batan al-Hawa into a large Israeli settlement through questionable acquisition of Palestinian properties and forced eviction and removal of Palestinian families who have lived in the neighborhood for decades.
The report warned that Batan al-Hawa would become the largest settlement compound in a Palestinian neighborhood in the Historic Basin of the Old City significantly contributing to the emerging ring of settlements around the Old City creating an irreversible reality and severely undermining the possibility of a future two-state solution.
Ateret Cohanim’s frenzied attempts to take over the Palestinian neighborhood threaten to displace 100 families composed of 600 Palestinians from their homes.
By the end of 2015 the settler organization had quadrupled the number of housing units in its possession taking over a total of some 27 units in six buildings in the neighborhood. There are also 12 other Palestinian units where an additional 51 families are living currently pending eviction claims.
The groups accused the government of acting through the General Custodian and the Registrar of Trusts both under the Israeli ministry of justice to facilitate settlers’ seizure of Batan al-Hawa as well as providing roughly one million shekels each year to fund private security to radical settlers in the hearts of Palestinian neighborhoods in east Jerusalem.
“The settlement in Batan al-Hawa is an integral part of efforts by settler organizations and Israeli authorities to consolidate Jewish control of the Old City and the surrounding Palestinian neighborhoods to create an irreversible reality in the Holy Basin around the Old City that deliberately subverts efforts to negotiate an agreed political resolution on Jerusalem” the groups warned.
