Israel 'schedules expulsion of Palestinian family from Sheikh Jarrah in March'

Israeli authorities have scheduled the expulsion of a Palestinian family from the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood of East Jerusalem to take place between March and April, the family’s lawyer has confirmed.

Some 11 members of the Salem family would be expelled from the property claimed by Israeli settlers, Majed Ghanaymeh, the family’s attorney, told The New Arab.

The Salem family arrived in Sheikh Jarrah as refugees, after being expelled by Israel from their hometown of Qaluniyah, west of Jerusalem, in 1948. They received a ‘protected tenant’ contract from the Jordanian government.

Israeli settlers claim they have purchased the property from pre-1948 Jewish owners, but under international law, Israelis have little claim to the eastern parts of city captured by force in 1967 and annexed the following year.

A similar action by Israel in May 2021 led to the Sheikh Jarrah uprising and subsequent war in Gaza last year.

“In 1988, the Israeli court ordered the expulsion of the Salem family, based on a claim by Israeli settlers that they had documents that prove their ownership of the property”, said Ghanaymeh.

“The court recently reopened the case, so we presented an objection to the expulsion order, which by Israeli law expires after 25 years...the court rejected the objection on Monday and confirmed the expulsion," he added.

On the same day that Israel & Zionist orgs around the world are getting hysterical about @amnesty’s new apartheid report, the J’lem court ruled to forcibly evict a Palestinian family from Sheikh Jarrah so a Jewish city council member can take over their home. It’s not complicated

— Ben Reiff (@bentreyf) February 1, 2022

“After Israel occupied Jerusalem in 1967 we continued to pay rent to the Israeli court”, Ibrahim Salem, a 38-yar-old family member, told The New Arab, “we continued to pay rent after the expulsion order in 1988 too, which is why the court’s decision surprised us”, he added.

🚨Ethnic Cleansing update - Sheikh Jarrah🚨
In March, 9 members of Salem family will be forcefully thrown out of their home to be replaced by Yonatan Yosef, a Jewish settler who works w/ Jerusalem deputy mayor Aryeh King, both outspoken about their goal to turn the city Jewish. https://t.co/40UpsB8Y8M pic.twitter.com/tJTh3wvv2h

— Jalal (@JalalAK_jojo) January 31, 2022

According to Salem, “The Israeli court is biased. It only aims at emptying Jerusalem from Palestinians to give our place to settlers”, he stressed, “even if we appeal, we don’t trust the Israeli court system. We depend only on solidarity in Palestine and beyond”.

Israeli law allows Jews to claim the ownership of any property that had Jewish owners any time before 1948. Based on the same law, some 28 more Palestinian families in Sheikh Jarrah face expulsion orders.

The attempt to expel the families of Sheikh Jarrah sparked a wave of Palestinian protests across the country last May.

“We are three brothers living with our families, including seven children and our 74-year-old mother, Fatima Salem, the head of the family”, explained Salem. “We were all born here and have nowhere else to go. If they do expel us, we will continue to live in the street, right here”.