My father spent his life defending Jerusalem, and he always told us the Israeli judiciary, specifically the Supreme Court, is a graveyard for Arab rights.
Darwish, son of Sulaiman Darwish Hijazy (Abu Darwish), who fought a court battle for ten years, presenting ownership documents dating back to 1814. The battle ended in 2010, when the Israeli court refused to admit his documents.
The Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood was established in East Jerusalem in 1956 by an agreement signed between the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees and the Jordanian government, and at that time it accommodated 28 Palestinian families whom Israeli colonizing militias displaced from Palestinian lands they captured by force in 1948.
In 1972, Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jewish settler groups went to register the land of Karm al-Ja`uni in Sheikh Jarrah in the Israeli Land Registry Department, and the Israeli courts accepted the application based on forged papers. However, the Israeli court rejected the argument. The papers were considered forged.
In 1983, a Jewish lawyer deceived the people of Sheikh Jarrah when he raised the issue of evicting dozens of families on their behalf, and it was found that he recognized the settlers` right in the neighborhood, and the Arabs living in the neighborhood became legally defined as a protected tenant who paid the rent to the settlers.
Israeli settlers and government forces succeeded in evicting three families. In 2008, they evicted the al-Kurd family and, in 2009, they evicted the Ghawi and Hanoun families. Meanwhile, the people of Karm al-Ja`uni neighborhood are still fighting against displacement and colonial settlement plans.
In 2016, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) conducted a survey that showed that 818 Palestinians were at risk of displacement due to the eviction cases brought against them in East Jerusalem. A follow-up survey in 2020 revealed that at least 218 Palestinian families have eviction cases filed against them, most of them by settler organizations, placing 970 people, including 424 children, at risk of displacement. The majority of the new cases were identified in Batn al-Hawa area in Silwan, which is the community with the largest number of people at risk of displacement, due to the ongoing evictions. Between 2017 and 2020, nearly 15 families, including 62 Palestinians, were expelled from their homes in the Old City, Silwan and Sheikh Jarrah in East Jerusalem.
What is happening today, in early 2021, an Israeli court issued a new decision giving four families from the neighborhood until May to vacate their homes. They are families al-Kurd, Qasim, Ja`uni, Skafi, and three other families until next August, they are the Hammad, Dijani and Daoudi families.
On Friday, 7May 2021, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights announced that the steps taken by Israel against the residents of the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in East Jerusalem may amount to “war crimes,” according to a survey conducted by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in 2020, Eviction lawsuits have been filed against at least 218 Palestinian families in East Jerusalem, including families in Sheikh Jarrah. Most of them were initiated by settler associations, exposing 970 people, including 424 children, to the risk of displacement, and which UNICEF also condemned.
What happens from the succession of aggressions carried out by the occupation over the years and exposing Palestinian families to the risk of expulsion, displacement and cleansing, are violations of the rights of Jerusalemites and Palestinians in the full sense of the word. It is the closest thing to a “new Nakba” (catastrophe). Today, the people of Sheikh Jarrah are standing in front of an important and delicate stage in their lives and political struggle, and are facing the existential struggle in front of the attacks of projects seeking their elimination. Meanwhile, the families await their unknown fate in light of the announcement by the Association of the Eastern Jews and the Israel Knesset Association, which claim ownership of the land, that it intends to establish 200 settlement units on the rubble of Sheikh Jarrah`s homes.
The Palestinian people have valiantly and steadfastly resisted all political attempts to eliminate them, and all violations by the occupier of their land and their homes under conditions of conflict, bitter occupation and a globalized international system led by the United States of America. For the sake of their full rights, under the weight of these challenges and under all the circumstances that affect the essence of the people and the nation, and in the face of the ethnic cleansing that they encounter, which began with the 1948 Nakba and continues in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood to this day by what, according to international law, amounts to a war crime.
The supreme right that prevails over all rights is the human right in a homeland, and what falls under that of safe living away from threats and distressing livelihood and security over his home, his home, his family and his children. It does not portend well in the region nor in the whole world, as Jerusalem is a compass for the world and for everyone, and everyone in the world should pay attention to it as a blatant and resounding human rights issue, so we invite you to be with us through this urgent move to put pressure on the Israeli occupier to stop all its practices in violating the right of the Arab Palestinian people in its land, dwelling and sanctities, and at least abiding by international decisions regarding Jerusalem and the Holy Places.
