Turkey has warned Israel that its efforts to evict Palestinians from East al-Quds will have serious repercussions for the Middle East peace process.
In a statement issued on Tuesday, the Turkish Foreign Ministry urged Israel to "refrain from steps that would harm confidence between the parties and change the status of East Jerusalem (al-Quds)," stressing that "this is vital for peace efforts."
"We call for an immediate end to this action," the statement added.
Israeli police evicted two Palestinian families from their homes in East al-Quds on Sunday, which led to clashes in the Arab district of Sheikh Jarrah.
The action followed a decision by Israel's Supreme Court to order the eviction of 53 Palestinians.
The two families staged a sit-in in front of their homes in protest at the evictions, the Press TV correspondent in al-Quds reported on Monday.
Maysun Qawwi, one of the victims of the unlawful act, told Press TV that she was at home with her husband and five children when Israeli police brutally broke into their house and evicted them at around 4 a.m. on Sunday.
Faced with eviction in East Jerusalem, families say they won’t be forced to leave again
Palestine Monitor
7 August 2008
Picture: LRC, Land Research Center Fawzieh Al Kurd spent years renovating her home, located in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, making improvements and dividing it into smaller sections to accommodate her five children and their families and to provide peace and quiet for herself and her husband, Mohammad Al Kurd, who is partially paralyzed and suffers from diabetes and heart problems.
While caring for her husband in hospital seven years ago, Mrs. Kurd received a phone call from a neighbor, informing her that Israeli settlers, with the help of the police, had broken into her home. Since then, three Israeli settler families have occupied the sections of the house she labored over for her children. And now, following the 16 July order by the Israeli Supreme Court, Mrs. Al Kurd and her husband are also facing eviction.
“Laws are legal, but unjust,” says Kifah Rdaedh, a supporter of the family and Fatah member for Jerusalem district.
For many Palestinians facing eviction, whether in Jerusalem, the West Bank, or elsewhere, it is not the first time. Many, like the Al-Kurd family, are refugees from the 1948 war. They have been forced from their homes once and they are not prepared to have it happen again.
Violating International Law
Settlements in Jerusalem contravene both international law and the Road Map established in the Oslo Peace Accords. The United Nations recognizes East Jerusalem as occupied territory, and therefore subject to the provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention, and consequently rejects Israeli sovereignty over East Jerusalem.
UN Security Council Resolution 446, Article 3, “Calls once more upon Israel, as the occupying Power, to abide scrupulously by the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention, to rescind its previous measures and to desist from taking any action which would result in changing the legal status and geographical nature and materially affecting the demographic composition of the Arab territories occupied since 1967, including Jerusalem, and in particular not to transfer parts of its own civilian population into the occupied Arab territories.”
Establishing facts on the ground
Jerusalem remains one of the most important outstanding issues in negotiations for a “final status” agreement between the Palestinian Authority and Israel. And according to Rdaedh, the rate of Israeli settlement and confiscation of Palestinian lands has more than tripled since the Annapolis peace process began. She said international support is urgently needed to counter Israel’s last minute attempts to put “facts on the ground” before a peace settlement is concluded.
"We are aware that this is part of the wider scheme to settle in East Jerusalem and to enhance the small settlements scattered all over Jerusalem and especially in and around the Old City, areas of Wadi Al Joz, the Mount of Olives, Ras Almound, and will eventually connect to the big colonies surrounding Jerusalem,” said Rdaedh. “The ultimate goal is to evict the Palestinians from Jerusalem and annex their land."
Remaining resolute
Despite many years sharing a house with hostile Israeli settlers, paying for their electricity, and even being ordered to pay 120,000 NIS for their legal fees, Mrs. Al Kurd remained composed as she related the history of events. “I have an encyclopedia to tell you of all the harassment,” she said.
While home alone, her husband was sick in hospital at the time, 6 armed Israeli settlers broke into her home. When they left she found a pistol hidden in a bag of papers outside her house, in an attempt to frame her, she said.
She said the settlers would often leave the doors of house open, with stacks of cash or expensive electronics visible, hoping they could tempt her to steal from them. Soiled diapers were left out in the heat for three days outside her door. Twice she returned to her home to find all her belongings removed.
One settler, she said, posted a picture of a Palestinian on the fuse box, gave her young child a plastic gun and told him to shoot at the photo, aiming for the eyes, nose, and throat. “This is how we will get them to leave,” the woman said.
She was offered $10 million dollars by the settlers’ lawyer if she would leave the house. “If you give me the whole world – No,” Mrs. Kurd said. “I will never leave my house.”
The Al Kurd house is part of a housing project built in 1956 by the Jordanian government in cooperation with the United Nations Refugee and Welfare Association (UNRWA) to house 28 Palestinian refugee families who fled their homes in 1948. The 28 families, collectively represented by the Sheikh Jarrah Neighborhood Committee, are all facing eviction from their homes.
A prominent member of the committee representing the families, said, “If this [eviction order] is implemented, we will be next. You won’t see any [Palestinians] here [in Sheikh Jarrah].”
In appealing the court’s decision the families were once again faced with the high cost of legal fees. “They want to bleed us continuously – morally and our pocket,” the committee member said. “They are putting us under pressure.”
But for Palestinians living in Jerusalem, eviction is not the only obstacle they face. A recent university graduate who had received four job offers in Ramallah, on the other side of Israel’s “security fence,” said she couldn’t find a single job in Jerusalem.
Huda Al-Imam, a resident of Sheikh Jarrah and director of the Centre for Jerusalem Studies at Al-Quds University led me on a tour of the neighborhood. She said, “I don’t mind the Israelis living here, but based on justice, equality, freedom. I should be able to go and plant a flag in West Jerusalem in my father’s house.”
http://www.palestinemonitor.org/spip/spip.php?article575
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