Igniting tensions in East Jerusalem, Israeli settler networks are seeking to uproot up to 550 Palestinians from the city, to the complete silence of a Biden administration that claims to seek a two-State solution.
In what could become one of the largest expulsions of Palestinians from East Jerusalem, Israeli settler organizations are working with the country’s legal system to evict another 24 families from their homes.
During October, 2020, the Israeli magistrate court of Jerusalem ordered the expulsion of 12 families, out of the 24 living inside the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah.
In addition to their expulsion from their homes, the Palestinian families were also ordered and forced by the court to pay $20,000 in legal fees for their deportation case.
The expulsion order, which is likely to be completed with the destruction of Palestinian property, after it is seized to make way for illegal Israeli settlers, is set to be enforced as early as May.
As it stands, four Palestinian households – comprising 27 people – will be forced out onto the street no later than May 2, while three other families are set to be forced out in August.
Israeli settler organizations based in the Karm al-Jaouni area are behind the expulsion orders, claiming that the land on which Palestinians live, in Sheikh Jarrah, was once owned by Jews prior to the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.
Despite Palestinian attempts to present their legal case that the settler organizations are lying about this and have no proof, Israeli courts refuse to see the evidence.
It is also important to note that, while the Israeli legal system will recognize the claims of Jewish Israelis to land allegedly owned previously by Jews, this right is not granted to the Palestinians the other way around?
On the issue of the Sheikh Jarrah evictions, Fadi al-Hidmi, Palestinian Authority Minister of Jerusalem Affairs, stated that the international community is obligated to step in.
What is taking place is a systematic, programmed process of replacing the Palestinians expelled from their land and property with foreign settlers.
In the 1970’s, following the June 1967 occupation of East Jerusalem, Israel began implementing a “demographic balance” policy. The aim for the Israeli authorities is to limit the percentage of Palestinians living in the city to 30% or less.
While Israel claims that Jerusalem is its undivided capital, the Palestinian Authority only seeks to gain back East Jerusalem, which is considered under international law to be an illegally occupied territory.
Despite the Biden Administration having stated consistently that it seeks a two-State solution and that this is the only solution in the Palestine-Israel conflict, it continues to ignore the ongoing ethnic cleansing of East Jerusalem.
Not only does Biden not confront Israel on the issue of its illegal settlements and home demolitions in Jerusalem, but it has worked to block the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate the settlement issue.
If there is to be a two-State solution, the capital of the future Palestinian State will have to belong in currently occupied East Jerusalem.
However, this is being made more and more impossible by the day, with the systematic expulsion of Palestinian residents from the city, along with the expansion of settlements such as Atarot, Ramat Shlomo and Givat Hamatos, which divide the city from the West Bank.
Along with Sheikh Jarrah, Israeli Settler organizations are also heavily targeting the area of Silwan, from which at least 36 families have been expelled since the beginning of 2020, according to Israeli NGO Peace Now.
In East Jerusalem as many as 200,000 Israeli settlers live, with about 2,500 hardline settlers residing in properties surrounding Palestinians in areas like Silwan.
Earlier this week, 11 Palestinians were injured in clashes with Israeli police forces, who reportedly raided the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Kafr Aqab as a bulldozer made an opening in the wall surrounding the area.
Local youths then acted to tear down the fences built around the construction site, for what has been described as a Judaization project in the area.
An Israeli NGO called Grassroots Jerusalem states that the presence of illegal Israeli settlers in East Jerusalem causes great agitation to Palestinian residents. The NGO claims that settlers have been held responsible for forced evictions and terrorism.
Last year almost 1,000 Palestinians were made homeless due to Israeli house demolitions in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, with over 10,000 settler units having been approved, so they can never be removed without Israeli bloodshed?
RT. com / ABC Flash Point Invasion News 2021.
This will be the next target indeed, otherwise the Messiah cannot expose the message?
Where are the sanctions against Israel for stealing Palestinian homes and lands? Where the EU and the US? How about the UN? So fast to sanction Russia and China, but too afraid to sanction Israel? Looks like Biden will also take his orders from BiBi. Nothing really changes. The hypocrisy of the West is staggering. The selling out of the Palestinians is shameful. A good place to send in the UN troops to protect the Palestinian people. The new holocaust the West watches in silence. BiBi and the Israeli judicial system learned a lot from Hitler and are using what… Read more »
Business as usual?
Zionists are very rude and in their mind can do no wrong. Dangerous thinking breeds dangerous outcomes.
As simple as that, as history already confirmed those facts, leading to the deportation of indigenous people of Palestine?