SETTLERS ATTEMPT TO TAKE OVER PALESTINIAN HOUSE IN AL QUDS

Al Quds, 27 Jumadil Awwal 1436/18 March 2015 (MINA) – Settler groups tried to take over a Palestinian-rented house of Sub Laban family in Jerusalem Old City’s neighborhood of Aqabat al-Khalidiya Monday morning in the presence of the Israeli police, local sources said.

The settlers demanded immediate eviction of the house under the claim of being owned by Jews according to a decision of the Israeli Jerusalem District Court, Palestinian Information Center (PIC) quoted by Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA) as reporting.

Tensions have been running high as dozens of Israeli settlers arrived at the scene and attempted to evacuate the Sub Laban’s house by force amidst heightened presence of police, locals, and foreign peace activists.

The spokesman of the neighborhood Basim al-Qadoumi told QPress that the house is located within a historic building dating back to the Ottoman and Mamluk era. The Sub Laban family has inhabited the house for a very long time as the family rented it before 1967, he added.

The tenant along with a group of foreigners and locals are sitting-in inside the house in solidarity with the family which refuses to evict its home. The Israeli Jerusalem District Court postponed Monday noon the eviction of the house until May.

Israeli police raided the house early morning and ordered the Sub Laban family to evict it, granting them only ten minutes to leave the apartment.

The evacuation was delayed following attempts by the family’s lawyer who managed to delay it for two hours in a successful attempt to obtain a court ruling to halt the eviction.

Jewish settlers last February attempted to evict the house, claiming that the house belongs to a Jewish family and that settlers have the right to inhabit it instead of a Palestinian family.

Rafat Sub Laban said his family rented the house in 1956 from Jordan’s then Custodian of Enemy Property (CEP), 11 years before Israel occupied the eastern part of Jerusalem.

The house was originally owned by Jewish migrants before the CEP assumed control of Jewish-owned property upon the Israeli-Arab war in 1948.

The Jordanian Custodian of Enemy Property was established to handle property taken from Jews in the West Bank in 1948. In 1967, this function was disbanded.

The Jewish organization Ateret Cohanim filed a lawsuit at the Israeli magistrate court to seize the property one year and a half ago, and won it. Nevertheless, the family appealed the decision before the District Court, which is due to return with a verdict on May 31, 2015.

It is not the first time that settlers raid Arab houses in Occupied Jerusalem for evacuation purposes. More than 20 housing units have recently been taken over forcibly by Jewish settlers in Silwan neighborhood. (T/P006/R03)

Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA)