Israeli Plan to Build Yemenite Visitor Center in Silwan
Occupied Jerusalem, MINA – Jerusalem affairs specialists have warned of an Israeli plan to build a Yemenite visitor center in Silwan district in Occupied Jerusalem as part of ongoing efforts to take over a neighborhood that allegedly belonged to Yemenite Jewry.
The Israeli occupation authority (IOA) and the Ateret Cohanim settler group claim that the Yemenite neighborhood (Batn al-Hawa) in Silwan was founded in the late 19th century, but it was evacuated by Britain in 1938 before dozens of Palestinian families moved in.
They also claim that an old Yemenite synagogue used to exist in Silwan as part of their relentless efforts to seize as many Palestinian homes and buildings as possible in the district, which is located near the Old City of Jerusalem, Palinfo reported.
In 2015, Ateret Cohanim managed to evict the Jerusalemite Abu Nab family, who had been living in what this group claim to be an old Yemenite synagogue in Batn al-Hawa, and gave its house to Jewish settlers.
Recently, Ateret Cohanim reached an agreement with Israeli housing minister Ze’ev Elkin and justice minister Gideon Sa’ar to allocate 4.5 million shekels to build this Yemenite visitor center, which will include a synagogue and a police monitoring station, in Batn al-Hawa neighborhood, according to the specialists.
Ateret Cohanim is a government-backed Jewish group and educational institute located in the Muslim Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem. It actively works on Judaizing the holy city and expelling its indigenous people, the Jerusalemites, from their homes.
Israel’s Judaization activities started in Silwan district and its nearby areas in 1996 when the Jewish neighborhood of Ma’ale Hazeitim emerged as a small settlement on the Mount of Olives in east Jerusalem, inside the Arab neighborhood of Ras al-Amud.
In 2004, Ateret Cohanim embarked on extracting Israeli courts decisions that enabled it to seize several Palestinian homes and property and displace local families in Silwan and other neighborhoods of the holy city.(T/R3/RE1)
Mi’raj News Agency (MINA)
