Israel court evicts Palestinian family from Jerusalem home

The Jerusalem District court yesterday ordered the eviction of Nasser Rajabi and his family from their home in the Batan Al-Hawa neighbourhood of Silwan, in occupied East Jerusalem.

The Wadi Hilweh Information Centre, which monitors Israeli human rights violations in Jerusalem, said in a statement that the Al-Rajabi family’s property is a residential building consisting of three apartments housing 30 family members.

According to the statement, the family has been locked in a legal battle over the ownership of its property since 2016.

The court gave the Al-Rajabi family until 1 April next year to leave the property.

In January, the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court ordered the family to leave their property following a lawsuit filed by the Ateret Cohanim settler association in the name of a Jewish trust from the late 19th century.

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Ateret Cohanim has filed dozens of lawsuits against some 100 Palestinian families living in Batan Al-Hawa, putting 700 people at risk of eviction under the pretext that in the late 19th century the land was allocated by its Jewish owners to a Jewish trust for the benefit of poor Yemenite Jews of Jerusalem.

However Palestinians have land ownership documents which show their claim to the areas in question.