“It is the largest displacement of Palestinians in the past years.” This is the conclusion of a report published by the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories B’Tselem on the ethnic cleansing carried out by the Israeli occupation forces in Batn Al-Hawa neighborhood in Silwan in occupied Jerusalem.
The Center said in its recent report that the Israeli Supreme Court paves the way for the displacement of residents of Batn Al-Hawa neighborhood in Silwan: “We are talking about the largest displacement scheme carried out in East Jerusalem in recent years. Palestinian families will be kicked out of their homes in which they lived for decades.”
B’Tselem stressed that the Jewish-only settlement inside Batn Al-Hawa neighborhood in Silwan is an integral part of the plan to Judaize the Old City which is implemented by the Israeli occupation forces and settlement associations in the Old City of Jerusalem.
Displacement
The Israeli Supreme Court rejected a petition filed by the residents of Batn Al-Hawa neighborhood in the town of Silwan south of Jerusalem which allowed the Ateret Cohnim settlement association to continue in its plan to expel 700 Palestinians.
In its decision the court argued that the homes of Jerusalemites were built on land owned by Jews before the Nakba of 1948 despite the judges’ recognition that the Ateret Cohnim’s actions to seize the land were flawed and raised questions about the legality of moving the land to the right-wing group.
The Ateret Cohnim group which is active in the Judaization of occupied Jerusalem submitted a request to expel Palestinian families with the help of the Director General of the Ministry of the Judiciary in order to seize the area and the buildings erected on it claiming its Jewish ownership for more than 120 years. The act would displace hundreds of residents of the neighborhood according to judicial reports.
Racial discrimination
B’Tselem said that the Israeli occupation authorities are “discriminating against the Palestinians and are working in various ways to increase the number of Jews in the city and to reduce the number of Palestinians in order to create a demographic and geographic reality that eliminate any future possibility of undermining Israeli sovereignty over East Jerusalem.”
B’Tselem pointed out that as part of this policy the occupation forces seized thousands of dunums from the Palestinian population and set up 12 neighborhoods for Jewish settlers exclusively in East Jerusalem which was annexed by Israel.
B’Tselem pointed out that from the perspective of international law; the status of these neighborhoods does not differ from the status of the settlements in the rest of the West Bank. “It is a transfer of citizens of the occupying power to occupied territories which is contrary to international law.”
Use for settlement benefit
According to B’Tselem there are about 2800 settlers living in approximately 140 buildings in the heart of Palestinian neighborhoods in and around the Old City an area inhabited by some 300000 Palestinians.
The organization pointed out that various Israeli government ministries and the Israeli municipality of Jerusalem have mobilized in recent years to support the Ateret Cohnim group in its efforts to strip Palestinian families living in the neighborhood of Batn Al-Hawa of their homes and to replace them with Jewish settlers.
“We are talking about the largest displacement carried out by the occupation in the (east) of Jerusalem in recent years where dozens of lawsuits to evict Palestinian families from their homes in which they lived for decades have been brought up.”
According to a survey by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) 45% of families are threatened with displacement from the city based on ethnic and religious classifications.
According to the B’Tselem report the Batn Al-Hawa neighborhood in Silwan south of Al-Aqsa Mosque is divided into about 50 lots nine of which were transferred to Ateret Cohnim settlement group. Settlers have moved to five of them so far.
Multiple difficulties
Israeli settlers routinely raid the neighborhood as if the hardships caused by them were not enough; lawsuits economic pressure and daily harassment of residents resulted in clashes between the neighborhood’s youths and settlers which include stones throwing.
“Moreover the presence of settlers requires a constant presence of the police forces and the Israeli border guards as well as private guards financed by the Israeli Ministry of Housing all of whom commit violence against the Palestinian population threaten them arrest minors and disrupt the course of life in the neighborhood.”
The deeper the presence of settlers in the Batn Al-Hawa neighborhood the greater the numbers of Palestinians exposed to daily attacks by the settlers is even before driving them out of their homes. With all the suffering they face Palestinians are insisting on steadfastness and thwarting Israeli plans which aim at displacing them.
