At 1500hrs (1400 GMT) today, the Hannoun and Ghawi families were served an order to appear in the District Court of Jerusalem at 1630hrs. The settlers that had moved into the Hannoun and Ghawi homes filed a restraining order for the Hannoun and Ghawi families to stay 150 metres from the homes.
The settlers had seized the houses an hour after more than 200 armed Israeli police invaded the houses and threw the Hannouns and Ghawis out into the streets on August 2, 2009. Since then, the families have been camped out on the sidewalk across their stolen homes, sleeping on mattresses, without causing any disturbances to the Jewish settlers.
They are still holding out hope that justice will be restored and the houses which they have always lived in will be restored to them.
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Evictions gather pace in fight for East Jerusalem
By: Vita Bekker
Since early August, when two families in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood in East Jerusalem were forcibly evicted from their homes, Muhammad Sabagh has had little sleep. The 61-year-old retired plumber fears that he, his five brothers and their wives and children may soon also find themselves on the street.
The Sabagh family may become the next victim in a nearly four-decade-old battle that has been waged by two Jewish groups to reclaim properties in Sheikh Jarrah, an Arab -district north of Jerusalem's Old City, that they say belonged to them before 1948.
Evictions, demolitions of Palestinian homes built without permits and the building of new settler houses in East Jerusalem have helped spur the deepest rift between Israel and the US on the settlements issue in at least a decade. Israel's staunchest ally has repeatedly urged it to freeze Jewish construction to help renew peace talks with the Palestinians. George Mitchell, the top US envoy to the Middle East, is expected to visit Israel early next week to try to finalise a deal on a temporary lull in -construction.
But even in the midst of negotiations, Israel this week announced the building of 455 flats in the occupied West Bank and plans to bring forward the construction of 486 homes in East Jerusalem. The announcements appeared to be an attempt by Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister, to mollify the right-wing members of his coalition, who are opposed to a settlement halt.
Israel annexed East Jerusalem following the 1967 Arab-Israeli war in a move never recognised internationally. The Palestinians want East Jerusalem as the capital of their future state, while the Israeli government insists the whole of Jerusalem remains its undivided capital.
Sheikh Jarrah, home to 2,700 Palestinians, has become the new front line for control over Jerusalem. Rights groups maintain that settlers are advancing the construction of at least 540 housing units in the neighbourhood, helped by Israel's legal system, wealthy backers and cooperation from the Jerusalem municipality and Israeli government.
The evictions last month prompted condemnation from western countries, in spite of Israel's claim that they were apolitical and the result of a court process after the families failed to pay rent.
At dawn that day, following a court order, police carrying assault rifles removed the 53 members of the Hanoun and Ghawi families, including 20 children, from their homes.
The stone houses were then occupied by settlers who hoisted Israeli flags on the roofs and posted armed guards and security cameras near the front doors. They have refused to talk to journalists.
Mr Sabagh, who faces a court hearing over an eviction order next month, said: "The settlers are a powerful group. They succeeded with the two families and now they are trying to succeed with us. This is a political thing - they don't want just my house, they want the whole area."
Mr Sabagh's family and 26 others live in a part of Sheikh Jarrah in which a settler-related company is trying to get approval to construct a 200-unit -compound.
The families are descendants of Palestinian refugees who had lost their homes during the 1948 war that created Israel.
In 1956, they agreed with the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees and with Jordan - then in control over East Jerusalem - to forgo their refugee aid in return for becoming owners of properties in Sheikh Jarrah within three years. The ownership transfer was not finalised before the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.
The legal dispute over the homes emerged after Israel conquered East Jerusalem. Using Ottoman-period property deeds that the families' current lawyers say were forged, two Jewish groups in 1972 claimed they were the owners of the land and demanded rent -payments.
A decade later, the then-lawyer for the families did not contest the Jewish groups' ownership claims, instead agreeing that the families would keep their homes as long as they pay rent. Most of them still refused to pay and today claim they were not told of the details in the agreement, which serves as the legal basis for the attempt to evict them.
While their lawyers now intend to challenge the authenticity of the property deeds, the evictions are gathering pace.
Maher Hanoun, a 51-year-old food salesman, chain-smoked as he sat on a white plastic chair in the shade of an olive tree and stared at the house in which he had grown up. "If the Jews have the right to take back their land here, why can't we get back the property my family lost in 1948?" Mr Hanoun said, adding he had little faith in the Israeli legal system. "This is a political issue, so our best hope is pressure on Israel from the US." |
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 As refugees and people living under occupation, we are asking people to help us with our struggle for our rights. It is unbelievable that in the 21st century, Israel's authorities can get away with demolishing the homes of Palestinians in order to build settlements or national parks. The price we and our neighbours have to pay is too high, we are faced with two impossible choices - either we throw our kids out on the street or we go to prison. If we lose our homes, there is nowhere else for us to go, the only option we have is to live in tents.
International solidarity gives us more power and strength to continue in our struggle and stay in our homes. We need support from people around the world to let everybody know about our story and pressure their governments to help stop this racist policy of house evictions and demolitions.  By: Maher Hannoun, resident from Sheikh Jarrah facing imminent eviction and imprisonment
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