Settlers seize residential building in Silwan, East Jerusalem

Israeli settlers seized a residential building in the Batn al-Hawa neighborhood in the town of Silwan on Sunday evening, the area most targeted by settlement activity in East Jerusalem.

This comes following what was announced by the Israeli organization "Ir Amim" (left-wing) that monitors Jerusalem affairs, on January 2, about more than 130 Palestinians from 26 families in the Batn al-Hawa neighborhood facing "imminent eviction risk", after the Israeli Supreme Court rejected their final appeals.

Zahir al-Rajbi, head of the Batn al-Hawa neighborhood defense committee, said: "Settlers stormed the building owned by the Bsbous family and forced its members out during the evening hours, noting that today (Monday) is the final deadline set by the Supreme Court for the family to evacuate their home".

He pointed out that the Bsbous family, consisting of 13 people, had been living in two residential apartments before being forced to evacuate.

In a related context, al-Rajbi said that the Israeli Supreme Court's decision also included evacuating "the Rajbi family from 3 buildings containing 11 residential apartments", noting that "about 20 families" are threatened with eviction.

He added: "We do not know when the eviction will take place, but it could happen at any moment".

According to al-Rajbi, the Batn al-Hawa neighborhood has 87 families, with 15 families evicted since the start of the genocide war in October 2023.

He said: "There are about 15 other families residing on nearby land (to the neighborhood), so we are talking about more than 100 families, some of whom have been evicted, and dozens of families are still under imminent eviction threat".

He added: "The settlers want to evict all families from their homes in preparation for turning the neighborhood into a settlement", noting that the families have been living in their homes since the 1950s and 1960s.

He mentioned that the families "have been fighting in the courts for many years" to object to the eviction orders, but the courts "issue successive rulings in favor of the settlers, making all families threatened", according to him.

He warned that the pace of evicting Palestinians from their homes in East Jerusalem has become faster under the current Benjamin Netanyahu government.

In this regard, he said: "What happened recently did not happen in the past; we have been in the courts for more than 12 years, but the pace of eviction decisions and the implementation of these decisions is unprecedented".

He added: "They are exploiting the international community's preoccupation with what is happening in various parts of the world to pounce on the Batn al-Hawa neighborhood, and frankly, we feel that we are alone in this battle".

Al-Rajbi continued: "The threats to the residents do not stop and are ongoing around the clock".

Last week, the left-wing Israeli movement "Peace Now", specializing in monitoring settlement, said in a statement: "The eviction lawsuits (in Batn al-Hawa) are part of a large operation aimed at forcibly transferring an entire community of about 700 residents (Palestinians) from the neighborhood in East Jerusalem, and establishing a settlement in its place".

It pointed out that "the basis of all legal claims is: the Legal and Administrative Arrangements Law, enacted by the Knesset in 1970, which enabled Jews claiming ownership of properties in East Jerusalem, who lost their assets in 1948, to recover them from the Israeli Custodian General, despite receiving alternative properties since that year".

It pointed out that this law "applies only to East Jerusalem, and to Jews only and not to Palestinians who lost their properties in the same war and under similar circumstances".

According to the statement from the "Ir Amim" organization on January 2, the Israeli Supreme Court rejected appeals from 20 families in the past three days, including the Zahir Rajbi family, likely issuing final eviction orders at any time, with possible implementation of evictions within weeks.

It indicated that eviction orders were issued against the Khalil Bsbous family, expected to be implemented at the beginning of January.

The Palestinians say that East Jerusalem is the capital of the Palestinian state, but Israel says that Jerusalem in its eastern and western parts is its capital.