On Monday 31 December 2012, Israeli forces will evict the Shamasneh family from their home in Sheikh Jarrah. The family of ten, including six children, have lived in the home since 1963. Ayoub Shamasneh, the family elder, recently appealed to the international solidarity community to stand with them to resist their forced displacement.
Sheikh Jarrah, is a residential neighborhood in the north of the Old City of Occupied East Jerusalem and home to 2,800 Palestinians. Due to its strategic location around the Old City, It has been the site of an aggressive ethnic cleansing campaign. In 2009, Israeli settlers, supported by Israeli state forces, forcibly removed the Hanoun and the Al-Ghawi families (53 people, including 20 children) from their homes.
More recently, a group of Jewish-Israeli settler young men took over part of the Al-Kud family home. Nadia Al-Kurd explains that they release their dog on them frequently, which has terrified their children and caused injuries. In response to international solidarity campaigns aimed at supporting the Al-Kurd family to reclaim their confiscated property and remain in their home, the settlers poured sewage over the solidarity encampment to drive them away. Today, the Al-Kurd continues to live in constant fear of settler violence and further control of their home (a full report on Al-Kurd family's
[The Shamasneh home in Sheikh Jarrah, East Jerusalem]
The ethnic cleansing campaign targeting the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood threatens to forcibly displace approximately sixty families or nearly seven hundred people. Sheikh Jarrah is among several Palestinian cities surrounding East Jerusalem at high-risk of forcible displacement. Other cities include Issawiyyeh, Shuffat, Beit Hanina, Beit Iksa, and Silwan. According to Jerusalem's Master Municipal Plan (2000), Israel has an explicit policy of reducing the ratio of Palestinians in East Jerusalem, which would otherwise equal the city's Jewish population by 2030 due to natural population growth. In February 2012, the UN Special Rapporteur on Housing, Raquel Rolnik, described Israel's policy as a Judaization campaign targeting Palestinian communities within Israel Proper as well as the Occupied Territory.
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[Entering Sheikh Jarrah in East Jerusalem]
According to Palestinian journalist Dalia Hatuqa, the eviction has been postponed until Thursday. On 30 December 2012, we were able to speak with Dirar Shamasneh outside his home. He describes his family's ordeal and their determination to resist forced displacement. See the brief video below, and a translated transcription of the video beneath it.
[Update: the case is now postponed until March, 2013. More on this soon]
Additional Sources:
- BADIL, Jerusalem: A Displacement Master Plan - Interview with Khalil Tafakji
- UN OCHA, The Case of Sheikh Jarrah
- HAARETZ, Jerusalem master plan: Expansion of Jewish enclaves across the city
[We wish to thank the superb efforts of Daoud Mahmmod in helping us navigate the local context in Palestine]