These Palestinians have owned their homes for over sixty years. Their homes were built on vacant land donated by Jordan and the houses built by the UN. Houses they moved into after they lost their homes in what became Israel in the 1948 Nakba.
In 1970, after Israel took over Jerusalem, they passed the Legal and Administrative Matters Law, whereby Israelis may pursue claims to land and property allegedly owned by Jews in East Jerusalem prior to the establishment of the State of Israel. Palestinians who lost their homes in 1948 and 1967 have no rights to this legal redress, compensation or to return to their homes to live.
Two Israeli organisations registered part of Sheik Jarrah in their names, based on contested Ottoman land documents. These organisations then sold their ‘rights’ to Nahalat Shimon – the US based company that explicitly seeks to expand settlements.
Read more:
Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights, Statement, 7 May 2021
Letter from families of Sheikh Jarrah, calling on ICC to investigate, 22 April 2021
UN office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, 2019
The Israeli government is portraying this dangerous policy as a real estate dispute between private parties when it’s anything but. Last night the Israeli deputy mayor of Jerusalem and an ultra-nationalist Member of Knesset were seen among Israeli settlers taunting Palestinians protesting the forced evictions attesting to the heavy involvement of Israeli officials. As a Palestinian, I am not permitted by the Israeli judicial system to claim my grandparents’ home in Qatamon in West Jerusalem despite the fact that my family has all the paperwork and tangible evidence to make the case.
Zack Sabella, Jerusalem