Press Releases

Israeli forces will evict family from their home in Sheikh Jarrah

On Monday 31 December 2012, Israeli forces will evict the Shamasneh family from their home in Sheikh Jarrah. The family of ten, including six children, have  lived in the home since 1963. Ayoub Shamasneh, the family elder, recently appealed to the international solidarity community to stand with them to resist their forced displacement. [http://mondoweiss.net/2012/12/settlers-sheikh-jarrah.html

Sheikh Jarrah, is a residential neighborhood in the north of the Old City of Occupied East Jerusalem and home to 2,800 Palestinians. Due to its strategic location around the Old City, It has been the site of an aggressive ethnic cleansing campaign. In 2009, Israeli settlers, supported by Israeli state forces, forcibly removed the Hanoun and the Al-Ghawi families (53 people, including 20 children) from their homes. [http://unispal.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/0/16BCBEE7EBF67D5F852577BA004C06F1] More recently, a group of Jewish-Israeli settler young men took over part of the Al-Kurdi family home. Nadia Al-Kurdi explains that they release their dog on them frequently, which has terrified their children and caused injuries. In response to international solidarity campaigns aimed at supporting the Al-Kurdi family to reclaim their confiscated property and remain in their home, the settlers poured sewage over the solidarity encampment to drive them away. Today, the Al-Kurdi family continues to live in constant fear of settler violence and further control of their home.

The ethnic cleansing campaign targeting the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood threatens to forcibly displace approximately sixty families or nearly seven hundred people. Sheikh Jarrah is among several Palestinian cities surrounding East Jerusalem at high-risk of forcible displacement. Other cities include Issawiyyeh, Shuffat, Beit Hanina, Beit Iksa, and Silwan. According to Jerusalem's Master Municipal Plan (2000), Israel has an explicit policy of reducing the ratio of Palestinians in East Jerusalem, which would otherwise equal the city's Jewish population by 2030 due to natural population growth. [http://jcpa.org/text/Jerusalem-Master-Plan.pdf] In February 2012, the UN Special Rapporteur on Housing, Raquel Rolnik, described Israel's policy as a Judaization campaign targeting Palestinian communities within Israel Proper as well as the Occupied Territory. [http://www.icahd.org/node/271

According to Palestinian journalist Dalia Hatuqa, the eviction has been postponed until Thursday

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