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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CANUCK MPS MONITORING THE CONFLICT WANDER ONTO ONE OF JERUSALEM’S BATTLEGROUNDS
By: Carmelle Wolfson
Jerusalem - Peace activists in Toronto may be protesting TIFF's Tel Aviv Spotlight, but here in the Holy Land, the conflict drags on.
That's what a trio of Canadian MPs found out when they arrived at the Ambassador Hotel in mid-August and discovered they were around the corner from the front lines.
Strolling down to the Old City to grab dinner, Liberal Borys Wrzesnewskyj, NDPer Libby Davies and BQ rep Richard Nadeau, all members of the Canada-Palestine Parliamentary Friendship Association, were confronted by police cars.
At the roadside in the neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah stood a tent just outside the former house of the Gawis family, evicted by authorities in the early hours of August 2.
Further along, the three came upon a collection of plastic lawn chairs on the sidewalk, the makeshift camp of the Hannouns, another evicted family. In the last short while, 53 Palestinians have been ordered from their East Jerusalem homes.
"Obviously, East Jerusalem is going to be key for negotiations," says Wrzesnewskyj. The Etobicoke Centre MP has had his own trouble with negotiations; he had to resign as Liberal foreign affairs critic in 2006 when he caused a firestorm by saying it was time for talks with Hezbollah.
Speaking by phone from Canada on his return, he says that everywhere he went on the August 8 to 13 fact-finding mission, he was surprised by the optimism largely arising from the new U.S. administration. Still, he says, "The removal of families from East Jerusalem coming now almost seems like a challenge to the [U.S] president."
The case of the Hannoun family demonstrates the complexities. They have been living in this area, close to the Green Line separating East and West Jerusalem, since 1956, when the UN Relief and Works Agency made an agreement with the Jordanian government to build them housing.
Decades of legal fighting followed. A court ordered the Hannouns' eviction following an appeal by Nahalat Shimon International, a Jewish settler group claiming ownership of land in Sheik Jarrah based on deeds from the Ottoman rule in the 1800s.
The official complaint was that the family did not pay rent. The Hannouns' position is that paying rent means conceding their right to land they believe they legally own.
The U.S. has already criticized the evictions as destabilizing, and Canadian Foreign Affairs spokesperson Rodney Moore says, "Canada registered its concerns directly to the Israeli government on this issue." |
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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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