US condemns East Jerusalem home evictions

Published today (updated) 03/08/2009 12:37

 Bethlehem - Ma'an -

The United States Embassy staff sent a sharply worded letter to the Israeli occupation government  foreign ministry on Monday, condemning his government's decision to evict over 50 Palestinian families from their homes in East Jerusalem on Sunday.

The diplomats also said a "high-level protest" would be communicated to Israel later in the day in response to decision to evict the Shaikh Jarrah neighborhood families to make room for settlers.

As US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton "has stated previously, the eviction of families and demolition of homes in East Jerusalem is not in keeping with Israeli obligations under the road map," State Department spokesman Robert Wood said in a statement on Sunday.

"We urge that the government of Israel and municipal officials refrain from provocative actions in East Jerusalem, including home demolitions and evictions," Wood added. "Unilateral actions taken by either party cannot prejudge the outcome of negotiations and will not be recognized by the international community."

During the eviction, attempts by American and United Nations personnel to investigate were rebuffed by police on the scene, while CNN filmed Israeli forces dismissing a US Consulate official who had just arrived.

Ma'an's correspondent, who was also on the scene early Sunday, reported that Israeli forces prevented journalists from entering the area, and that some 20 international solidarity activists were arrested there. They were later released, according to Israeli news reports.

Police were filmed harassing and shoving Al-Jazeera reporters, who later said they overheard the newly arrived settlers pestering members of one of the two newly homeless families, saying, "This is Israel; you're not in Palestine any more."

A large unit of armed Israeli police and soldiers stormed the two homes while the families were sleeping on Sunday morning. The Palestinians were forced out on the street at gunpoint around 5am, and their belongings were soon removed and dumped several blocks away.

"They blew up the doors with small charges, walked in, and dragged us out like sacks," said Nasser Gawi, according to the Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz. "We are 38 people in the family. Now the skies are our blanket and the earth is our bed."

"We were dragged out of our beds, and told to wait outside," said Majhad Ganun. "They brought a truck and loaded everything we had on it. They took it somewhere, and didn't tell us where. I'm going to sleep on the pavement, we have no place to go."

An Israeli spokesman said the eviction followed a court ruling that the Palestinians' houses actually belong to a Jewish settler group, while both the family of refugees from the 1948 war and the United Nations insisted they have owned the residences since before Israel's existence, and for several generations.

The British Consulate, which is located in the same area, slammed the move. "Israel’s claim that the imposition of extremist Jewish settlers into this ancient Arab neighbourhood is a matter for the courts or the municipality is entirely unacceptable," it said in a statement. "Their actions are incompatible with the Israeli professed desire for peace. We urge Israel not to allow extremists to set the agenda."

In a statement the UN special coordinator for Middle East peace, Robert Serry, deplored "today's totally unacceptable actions by Israel... to allow settlers to take possession of these properties." He added that the move violated the International Quartet's calls for Israel to "refrain from provocative acts in East Jerusalem."

Head Palestine Liberation Organization negotiator Saeb Erekat strongly condemned the move, as well, in a statement on Sunday. "Tonight, while these new settlers from abroad will be accommodating themselves and their belongings in these Palestinian houses, 19 newly homeless children will have nowhere to sleep."

"Israel is once again showing its utter failure to respect international law, the Road Map and the most basic moral and humanitarian principles," Erekat said. "While Israeli authorities have promised the American administration that home demolitions, home evictions and others provocations against Palestinian Jerusalemites would be stopped, what we’ve seen on the ground is completely the opposite."

"Home demolitions, evictions and ID revocations are just a small part of the daily repertoire of Israeli policies carried out against Palestinian Christians and Muslims in occupied East Jerusalem," Erekat said.

UN official: Israel's Jerusalem evictions totally unacceptable

Published yesterday (updated) 03/08/2009 11:20 Bethlehem – Ma’an –

The United Nations special coordinator for Mideast peace condemned the Israeli occupation government's decision to evict 50 Palestinians from their homes in East Jerusalem on Sunday.

“I deplore today's totally unacceptable actions by Israel,” the official, Richard Serry, said in a statement to Ma’an.

Serry alleged that Israel removed the Palestinians, refugees registered with the UN, from their homes to make way for settlers wanting to take control of their property. “These actions are contrary to the provisions of the Geneva Conventions related to occupied territory.”

“They also contravene the united calls of the international community, including the Quartet, which in its recent statement urged the Government of Israel to refrain from provocative actions in East Jerusalem, including house demolitions and evictions,” he noted.

Israel’s High Court had issued a ruling earlier last week that the two homes belonged to Jewish citizens, and has in the past ruled that Palestinian East Jerusalem is part of Israel.

Serry disagreed, noting that “[t]he United Nations rejects Israel's claims that this is a matter for municipal authorities and domestic courts.”

“These actions heighten tensions and undermine international efforts to create conditions for fruitful negotiations to achieve peace,” he said, calling on Israel to adhere to international law and its Road Map obligations.

He said Israel must “cease and reverse such provocative and unacceptable actions in East Jerusalem.”

PLO denounces Israel over East Jerusalem evictions

Published yesterday (updated) 03/08/2009 09:34

Bethlehem – Ma’an –

Chief Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) negotiator Saeb Erekat strongly condemned the Israeli occupation government for the eviction of over 50 people from their homes in the neighborhood of Shaikh Jarrah in East Jerusalem on Sunday.

“Israel, the occupying power, once again has shown its commitment to the settler organizations by evicting more than 50 Palestinians, many of them children, from the houses where they have lived for more than 50 years,” Erekat said.

“Tonight, while these new settlers from abroad will be accommodating themselves and their belongings in these Palestinian houses, 19 newly homeless children will have nowhere to sleep,” he added.

“Israel is once again showing its utter failure to respect international law, the Road Map and the most basic moral and humanitarian principles,” Erekat noted. “While Israeli authorities have promised the American administration that home demolitions, home evictions and others provocations against Palestinian Jerusalemites would be stopped, what we’ve seen on the ground is completely the opposite.”

Regarding the role of the international community in stopping such actions, the official emphasized that “the evictions are part of a dangerous plan to encircle the Old City with Israeli settlements, isolating it from other Palestinian neighborhoods and creating facts on the ground to preempt the outcome of final status negotiations.”

“The international community must act decisively, in line with international law, against these Israeli measures that threaten the viability of a two-state solution,” he added.

Erekat also noted that the neighborhood is where most foreign consulates and international organizations in Jerusalem are located. “Nobody can say that they didn’t see these outrageous actions coming; now is time to act,” he said.

The US-backed Road Map stipulated that the Israeli government must reopen Palestinian institutions in East Jerusalem that were shut down in 2001. Instead of implementing this obligation, the Israeli government insists that Jerusalem is non-negotiable and allows the continuation of daily aggression against Palestinian civilians with the ultimate goal of forcing them to leave their ancestral homes, according to Erekat.

“Home demolitions, evictions and ID revocations are just a small part of the daily repertoire of Israeli policies carried out against Palestinian Christians and Muslims in occupied East Jerusalem,” Erekat said.

The top PLO negotiator concluded by expressing his solidarity with the affected families. “Today Israel tore down the tent where Um Kamel, an elderly woman who was evicted from her home in Sheikh Jarrah by Israeli police last year, had taken refuge. How does an old woman living in a tent offend the security of Israel? Her steadfast resolve and commitment to staying put has been an example for everyone; East Jerusalem is, and always will be, Palestinian.”

At the same time, Erakat recalled that “the Hanoun and Ghawi families as well as other 28 affected homes in Sheikh Jarrah have been engaging in non-violent resistance against Israeli evictions. They never injured anyone but still struggled to stay in their homes. Their case tells us of the need to give immediate protection to the Palestinian families being harassed by Israeli settlers and authorities within the occupied Palestinian territory.”

MP Odwan: IOA practices in occupied Jerusalem exceeded all norms

[ 02/08/2009 - 05:33 PM ]

GAZA, (PIC)--

Hamas MP Atef Odwan has lashed out at the Israeli occupation authority (IOA) police's forced evacuation of two Jerusalemite homes and kidnapping their owners along with foreign activists after beating them up and knocking down a sit-in tent.

Odwan in a press release on Sunday said that the Israeli governments are accustomed to lying, forgery and seizing Jerusalemite citizens' homes at trivial pretexts without any real legal basis.

He described such practice as highest form of criminality and violation of human rights and all heavenly legislation.

"The Zionist enemy has breached all international norms and human rights," the lawmaker charged.