Hundreds of Jerusalemite families in the Batn al-Hawa neighborhood of Silwan, south of the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque, face a massive wave of displacement, aimed at demolishing and controlling their homes, for the benefit of settlement associations, which is a new attempt to seize the town, as it is the southern incubator of the Temple Mount.

About 750 Palestinians from the 112 families who own homes in the neighborhood live in the homes that are threatened with eviction. All will be under the control of the Ateret Cohenim settlement association, which has been managing these properties since 2001, and Jerusalemites have inhabited them for hundreds of years, as the association pursues Jerusalemites in the courts. Israeli, issuing judicial notices and threats to evict their homes.

The Israeli court forced the Al-Rajabi family to evacuate an apartment building in the Batn Al-Hawa neighborhood in Silwan, south of the blessed Al Aqsa Mosque, at the end of last January, while the Israeli Magistrate Court in West Jerusalem issued, in mid-February, a decision to vacate buildings owned by the Shweiki families and return Dweik, after rejecting the objections submitted by the two families, to the judicial reports submitted by the Ateret Cohenim Association in 2018, on the pretext of the Jews' ownership of the land on which the building is located.

Commenting on these decisions, the Israeli "Peace Now" movement says: "The attempt to displace Palestinian citizens and replace them with Israelis in the heart of a Palestinian neighborhood in East Jerusalem was not without the support and assistance of the occupation authorities. In addition, this step constitutes a severe blow to the two-state solution, by Preventing the establishment of the capital of Palestine in East Jerusalem.

The Peace Now movement believes that the decisions to evict and demolish against the Jerusalemite families in the Batn al-Hawa neighborhood of Silwan are very unfair and cruel, and aim to displace families who have lived legally in their homes for decades.

Seize and uproot

The Al-Rajabi family is one of the Jerusalem families who received judicial notices and notices to evict its building, located in the center of the Batn al-Hawa neighborhood in the town of Silwan, by the "Ateret Cohenim" settlement settlement that claims to own the land.

The Al-Rajabi family, which consists of seven brothers, has lived in a residential building consisting of a storehouse and two floors, for decades, and has identification papers confirming ownership of the land on which the building is located.

“We live in the Batn Al-Hawa neighborhood before 1966, after buying lands and homes, and we have the identification documents to prove this, but we have received, we and 750 Jerusalem family, in 2015, many offers by (Ateret Kohnim) settlers, by paying huge sums to get us out of our homes, and to build alternative homes in Beit Hanina, but we rejected all offers to vacate our homes and leave them to the settlers. ”

Judicial notices

He added, “When (Ateret Cohenim) saw that the offers of sale did not work with the Jerusalemites, who rejected them categorically, confirming their adherence to the land of the grandparents and the fathers, she submitted judicial statements in the Israeli courts, claiming ownership of the homes we have lived in for hundreds of years.”

Al-Rajabi stresses that the Jerusalem families in the Batn Al-Hawa neighborhood of Silwan will not give up their lands, and the homes in which they lived and have children, stressing that the families are sticking to their homes and defending them, even if they are forced to leave them by force.

In a related context, Al-Rajabi indicates that the Batn Al-Hawa neighborhood is part of a settlement political plan led by the “Ateret Cohenim” organization, to control five dunums and 200 meters, under the pretext that it has owned Jews from Yemen since 1881, indicating that the goal is to forcibly displace Jerusalem families, and replace The settlers have their place.

Because of the increase in evictions and demolitions that threaten the displacement of hundreds of families, the situation in the Batn al-Hawa neighborhood has become very difficult, as the number of families who received notifications is 750, and it is made up of dozens of individuals. The Dweik family lives in a five-storey building and their number is around 30 people, and the Umm Nasser Al-Rajabi building where 22 people live, and they are subject to forced displacement.

He notes that the residents of the Batn al-Hawa neighborhood are subjected to attacks and violations by settlers, including elderly mothers and children, on a daily basis.

A long struggle

The story of the conflict between the residents of the Jerusalem neighborhood of Batn al-Hawa and the Ateret Cohenim Society, started when the settlement association established its first foothold in the neighborhood in 2004, by seizing a house belonging to the Al-Rajabi family, and the matter escalated sharply, in 2014, when the Ateret Cohenim Society handed over the decisions to evacuate their homes, Claiming that they live on land owned by the Jews of Yemen before 1948. A member of the Defense Committee for the People of Silwan, who specializes in settlement affairs in Jerusalem, Fakhri Abudiab, explains that “Ateret Cohenim, along with the Elad settlement association, are aiming to seize their properties to establish settlement outposts To complete their judging projects The surrounding Al-Aqsa Mosque is surrounded by settlements and outposts, which leads to the displacement of Jerusalemites living in the Batn Al-Hawa neighborhood of Silwan, from the vicinity of the Old City and Al-Aqsa Mosque. He points out that the Israeli courts stand with the settlers, after seizing a number of properties adjacent to their homes, adding that "the Israeli judiciary is racist and biased to the settlement societies, as the documents presented by residents of the neighborhood of Batn al-Hawa prove their right to remain on their land." Abu Diab continues his talk to “Emirates Today” that “settlement societies claim ownership of the land on which the Batn al-Hawa neighborhood has been built since the 19th century, which is a false claim.