Israeli Police Evict Palestinians From East Jerusalem Home
By VOA News
09 November 2008
Israeli border police officers stand guard near the al-Kurd family house in
the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in east Jerusalem, 09 Nov 2008
Israeli police have evicted a Palestinian couple from a home in disputed
east Jerusalem after an Israeli court ruled the family did not own the land
on which the house sits.
Israeli police entered the home in east Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah district
at dawn Sunday and removed Mohammed al-Kurd and his wife, Fawzieh. Fawzieh
al-Kurd says the officers broke down her door and dragged her and her
husband away.
The Palestinian couple had lived in the home for 52 years. The al-Kurds
became refugees in 1948 during Israel’s Independence War and were re-housed
in the east Jerusalem building in 1956, when the area was under Jordanian
control.
Israel captured east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war and annexed it in a
move not recognized internationally.
Israel’s Supreme Court ruled in July that the al-Kurds were living in the
home illegally. The couple have now moved in with neighbors.
An aide to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Rafiq Husseini denounced the
expulsion, saying it damages Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts.
Palestinians say Israeli authorities evicted the al-Kurds despite an appeal
to Israel’s Supreme Court to stop the move.
About 10 years ago, a Jewish property rights group bought a disputed title
to the land on which the home was built. An Israeli family later moved into
a section of the building.
In another development, fighting erupted in east Jerusalem’s Church of the
Holy Sepulcher Sunday between Greek Orthodox and Armenian Christians.
Monks from the rival sects kicked and punched each other after the Greeks
objected to an Armenian ceremony in the shrine, revered as the site of
Jesus’ crucifixion, burial and resurrection.
Israel police entered the church to break up the brawl and arrested two
clergymen.