Palestinian Family Evicted From East Jerusalem Home — 69 Years Later
Image by Getty Images
JERUSALEM (JTA) — A Palestinian family was evicted from its home of more than 50 years in the Sheik Jarrah neighborhood of east Jerusalem.
The eviction early on Tuesday morning to restore the property to the Jewish family that owned it prior to 1948 is the first such eviction since 2009.
The eight members of the Shamesneh family, including an elderly couple in their 80s on Tuesday afternoon remained outside of the home. Jewish tenants moved into the home following the eviction, AFP reported.
Under Israeli law, Jews who can prove that their families lived on property in east Jerusalem before the 1948 War for Independence can ask Israel’s general custodian office to release the property and return them to ownership. Thousands of Jewish families fled Jerusalem during the war when Jordanian forces took over the city.
Israel has tenaciously resisted allowing Palestinians any right to return to the homes they were driven from during the same war.
In 2013, Israel’s Supreme Court upheld the rulings of lower courts in restoring ownership rights to the Jewish former owners who sold the property to other Jews through the Israel Land Fund, a pro-settler organization.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
