[ad_1]
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – For Nabil al-Kurd, being expelled from the East Jerusalem home where he has lived since the 1950s would be a fate worse than death.
But the 76-year-old man and his wife and children are among dozens of Palestinians under threat of eviction from two disputed city districts, after an Israeli court ruled that their properties are built on land belonging to Jewish settlers.
“This is my homeland. All my memories are in this house,” Kurd told Reuters. “I’m not leaving unless it’s for the cemetery.”
Property claims against him and others in Sheikh Jarrah and a second neighborhood, Batan al-Hawa, are a focal point of settlers’ development plans in East Jerusalem, captured by Israel in a 1967 war.
Kurd received the eviction order in October, within 30 days.
He has appealed to the Jerusalem district court, although Hagit Ofran, project coordinator for the Israeli anti-settlement group Peace Now, says he has little chance of overturning the ruling.
This same court has confirmed this year several claims of the settlers, based on documents from the 19th and early 20th centuries, which generated censorship from the European Union, whose representative in Jerusalem says that 77 Palestinians are at risk of being transferred necessarily.
CITY AT THE CENTER OF THE CONFLICT
The status of Jerusalem, a holy city for Jews, Muslims and Christians, is at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The Palestinians want the capital of their potential state to be East Jerusalem, and most countries consider the settlements that Israel has built there to be illegal.
Israel disputes this, citing biblical and historical ties to the territory, as well as security needs and legal arguments.
Many of the Palestinians facing eviction were refugees like the Kurds or their descendants, who arrived in the area more than half a century ago, Peace Now said.
The settlers in the Kurd case bought the land from two Jewish associations who claimed to have bought it in the late 19th century, the group said.
A lawyer representing the settlers claiming Kurd’s property declined to speak to Reuters.
Peace Now says that some 14 families have been evicted from Batan al-Hawa since 2015 and 16 from Sheikh Jarrah since the late 1990s in such cases.
Evictions are generally suspended while appeals are heard, and some of the residents have appealed their cases to the Israeli Supreme Court, but Kurd’s family does not want to take chances.
“My family has packed the important things we need so that if they arrive at any second, we are ready,” said his daughter Muna al-Kurd.
“… We have a camera in the house, four cameras that show the street, and Dad stays up until two or three in the morning just looking to see if they come to evacuate us.”
(Written by Rami Ayyub; Edited by Jeffrey Heller and John Stonestreet)
[ad_2]
