Forced evictions in Jerusalem amount to ‘war crime’: Palestine

By Zain Khalil

JERUSALEM (AA) - Palestine condemned the forced eviction of Palestinians in occupied East Jerusalem by Israeli forces as a “war crime.”

Israeli judicial authorities have ordered a Palestinian family to vacate their house in favor of settlers in a case dating back to 1978.

The Palestinian family has been involved in a legal dispute with the Israeli authorities and settlers for 45 years. Settlers claim that Jews resided in the house before Israel’s creation in 1948, and Jordan later took over the administration of East Jerusalem.

They base their claims on the property on an Israeli law dating back to the 1970s that allows Jews to recover property that belonged to Jews before the establishment of Israel.

According to this law, those who are not related to the original owners of the property can claim it back.

“The forced eviction of the [Palestinian] family…amounts to a war crime,” the Ministry of Jerusalem Affairs said in a statement.

It said the Israeli decision “is part of attempts by the occupation and settler groups to seize as many as Palestinian houses in Jerusalem’s Old City and Silwan town near the Al-Aqsa Mosque.”

The decision “aims to evacuate the Palestinians as part of the racist apartheid system applied by the occupation,” it added.

The ministry called on the international community to urgently act “to stop all forced evictions, home demolitions, settler colonial activity, attempts to divide Al-Aqsa Mosque, and attacks on sanctities.”

Dozens of Palestinian families in East Jerusalem face expulsion from their homes in favor of Israeli settlers.

For Muslims, Al-Aqsa represents Islam’s third-holiest site. Jews call the area the Temple Mount, saying it was the site of two Jewish temples in ancient times.

Israel occupied East Jerusalem, where Al-Aqsa is located, during the 1967 Arab-Israeli War. It annexed the entire city in 1980 in a move never recognized by the international community.

*Writing by Ahmed Asmar in Ankara