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Israeli Authorities Allow Settlers to Occupy Palestinian Home Thursday 10 March 2011 by Alessandra Bajec - IMEMC & Agencies Israeli authorities decided, last week, that settlers will take over part of a Palestinian home in East Jerusalem, local sources reported. Based on a decision issued by an Israeli court last week, a Palestinian family has been ordered to share their home with Israeli settlers in the neighborhood of Rad al-Amoud, in East Jerusalem. The court decision followed an 11-year legal battle between the Hamdella family and Irving Moskowitz, renowned to be an American-Israeli billionaire and settler patron. Moskowitz purchased the property in 1990 from Chabad and the Volhynia Hassidic dynasty, a Jewish group who claims to own the land from before 1948. The Hamdallahs are expected to evacuate a room and their yard, on Monday, to make way for right-wing Israeli settlers who are likely to hamper their neighbors` daily routine. Dimitry Delyani, member of the Fatah revolutionary council, was quoted by Ma’an News agency saying: The home will be turned into an outpost, the settlers will bring in armed guards in order to make life for the Hamdellas unbearable, The Palestinian family has lived in the home since 1952. In 2005, the Jerusalem District Court ruled that the Palestinian family was forced to vacate parts of the home built after 1989. The order included a shed and a storehouse. Sixteen Palestinians currently live in the disputed house. A couple and a child live in the bedroom that the court ordered to be evacuated. A family member named Khaled Hamdallah was cited by Haaretz commenting: Three people live in this room…We don`t know what to do. I don`t even care anymore. I feel like dying. They want to throw us out completely. The police is with them, the judges are with them. So what`s the point? The Hamdallah home sits next to Ma`aleh Zeitim, an enclave of 100 Jewish families surrounded by a wall in the heart of Ras al-Amoud neighborhood. A construction project set to include 14 new housing units for Jewish families is nearly completed. http://www.imemc.org/article/60837 Palestinian Family in East Jerusalem Told to Make Way for Jewish Settlers 11 March 2011 ShareCourt order to evacuate room follows 11-year battle waged by US millionaire Irving Moskowitz Ahmed Hamdallah, his wife Amani and their son Yazan in the yard of their home in Ras al-Amud, East Jerusalem. Photograph: Quique Kierszenbaum for the Guardian Harriet Sherwood in Jerusalem – The Guardian A Palestinian family in East Jerusalem have been ordered to evacuate a room in their home so Jewish settlers can move in, following an 11-year court battle waged by a pro-settler US millionaire. Ahmed Hamdallah, 33, has been told to remove his furniture and possessions by Monday or he will be billed for the cost of bailiffs clearing a room occupied by himself, his wife and one-year-old son. New occupants will take over the property under the protection of armed guards, he has been told. The Hamdallah family have lived in the home in Ras al-Amud since 1952. The extension, in which Ahmed, Amani and Yazan Hamdallah now live, was built in the mid-1980s. However, the land on which the home is built was bought in 1990 by Irving Moskowitz, a Florida businessman, from its pre-1948 Jewish owners. Moskowitz has spent millions of dollars purchasing property in East Jerusalem to create pockets of hardline Jewish settlements in Palestinian neighbourhoods. Hamdallah said he intended to destroy the extension, which has views of the Dome of the Rock and the Mount of Olives, rather than hand it over to settlers. “Do you think I will just give them the key? I’m not going to allow them to live in my house,” he told the Guardian. “I have no power to do anything. I don’t even have the strength to speak or eat or go to work.” Amani, his wife, said: “We have no plan, nowhere else to go.” She said the main part of the house was already crowded with members of the extended family. The Hamdallah family came to Ras al-Amud after fleeing their village near Ramle in the 1948 war. The house is now bordered on two sides by Ma’ale Zeitim, a housing development built on land also owned by Moskowitz in which about 100 Jewish families live and from which Israeli flags fly. Expansion of Ma’ale Zeitim is blocked by the presence of the Hamdallah home. A Jerusalem court ruled in 2005 that the family could retain buildings constructed up to 1989. However, according to the Hamdallahs’ Israeli lawyer, Shlomo Lecker, Moskowitz’s legal representatives have continued to press for evacuation of the extension and yard, and bailiffs this week served notice of eviction for Monday. “This group of settlers are very determined to get the family out and they are trying every possible trick,” he said. “They got an order allowing the settlers to come to the house and take over the room and the yard.” Lecker said he was challenging the decision. Daniel Luria, spokesman for Ateret Cohenim, which promotes Jewish settlemen?`VioId ?VioAuthor ???VioOrganisation???VioLocation ???VioContactEmail???VioTitle???ongoing?VioEvictiont in East Jerusalem, said: “We’re talking about one of the most significant areas historically and religiously for Jews. Jews have the right to live in any neighbourhood. The fact that the world does not recognise that is a problem that the world has got.” About 200,000 Israeli Jews live in settlements in East Jerusalem, which was captured by Israel in 1967 and later annexed. Settlements in occupied or annexed territory are deemed illegal under international law. A confidential EU report on East Jerusalem, circulated in December, warned that ideologically-driven settlers were threatening the prospects of a peace deal. “If current trends are not stopped as a matter of urgency, the prospect of East Jerusalem as the future capital of a Palestinian state becomes increasingly unlikely and unworkable,” it said. http://www.intifada-palestine.com/2011/03/palestinian-family-in-east-jerusalem-told-to-make-way-for-jewish-settlers/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+intifada-palestine%2FQuVY+%28INTIFADA%29 |
