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Dear Friends,
It is 3AM, raining, and the temperature is below freezing.
The electricity has been cut off and over 100 heavily armed police officers have arrived with a K9 Unit.
A bulldozer soon rolls in.
These were the conditions met by the Salahiyah family from Sheikh Jarrah when they were forcibly evicted overnight and their homes destroyed by Israeli authorities. Many family members were arrested with activists who were the only ones present as witnesses.
Now, in the heart of Jerusalem’s winter, this family of 12 with 5 children is without a roof over their heads so that the Municipality can build a Palestinian school on its ruins.
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Friends: the Israeli authorities had it within their power to prevent this indefensible act.
They had alternative options which would have enabled the Salahiyeh family to remain safely in their homes while still providing the children of East Jerusalem with the classrooms they so desperately need. Yet, they chose instead to cynically dispossess a Palestinian family in the middle of the night when reporters and decision-makers were asleep and could do nothing to stop them.
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A refrigerator door with pictures of the Salahiyeh family is shown among the ruins of the family's home. 19 Jan 2022
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Expressed by our researcher Aviv Tatarsky: “The Municipality is succeeding in making even the obligation to provide education to the Palestinian population into part of the mechanism of dispossession."
The tragedy of the Salahiyeh family - a Palestinian family evicted to make way for a school - encompasses many of the core issues facing Palestinian families in East Jerusalem that endanger the well-being of their children, families, and communities.
Over 150 additional Palestinian families face pending eviction lawsuits in Sheikh Jarrah and Silwan, threatening to displace more than 1,000 people.
We must ensure that the rest of these families do not encounter the same fate as the Salahiyeh family.
Read below to learn more about these issues.
With heavy hearts,
Ir Amim Staff
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Ongoing Land Dispossession
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Members of the Salahiya family are Palestinian refugees who were uprooted from their home in Ein Karem (Southwest Jerusalem) in 1948 and have now lost their home and property for a second time. Unlike Jews who can reclaim assets lost in East Jerusalem in 1948, the family has no legal recourse of retrieving or returning to their property in Ein Karem.
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A view of modern-day Ein Karem.
Credit: Shmuel Bar-Am
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According to the family, their parents purchased the plot of land in Sheikh Jarrah and have lived on the property since before 1967. There are reportedly disputed ownership claims of the land, and the courts have consistently ruled against the family, embroiling them in a longstanding legal battle over their property.
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Discrimination in urban planning policies is the underlying cause for most home demolitions throughout East Jerusalem. Because of the Municipality’s abdication of responsibility for creating and approving zoning plans for Palestinian neighborhoods - needed to obtain building permits - most construction is therefore deemed “illegal” and subject to demolition.
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Demolition in al-Walaje, a Palestinian village with tens of demolition orders. 25 Aug 2021
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The eviction and demolition of the Salahiyeh family home, however, was part of a different side of the urban planning coin: land for public use.
Although Israeli law allows for the expropriation of private property for public purposes, it is typically only carried out in the absence of other options. In the case of the Salahiyeh family, the Jerusalem Municipality expropriated their property for the construction of educational institutions for Palestinians in East Jerusalem and then demanded their eviction and demolition of their home.
However, there were other options available to the municipality that would have allowed the family to remain in their home:
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1. Build on an open plot of land in Sheikh Jarrah already designated for public buildings to serve the neighborhood. This plot was transferred in 2007 to an ultra-Orthodox Jewish association for the construction of a yeshiva yet it still sits empty. The Municipality could easily reclaim the parcel of empty land and re-allocate it for the purpose of Palestinian educational institutions – as per its original intent - while compensating the ultra-Orthodox association.
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A yeshiva planned for open land in Sheikh Jarrah would significantly increase the number of settlers in the neighborhood.
Click image to read more
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2. Build the school on a section of the land that would allow the family to remain safely in their homes. According to the municipality's plan, construction of the school is not even intended for the location of where the houses once stood.
Rather than undertaking a more just and humane solution, the municipality dispossessed a Palestinian family to meet such needs.
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Some 2,840 additional classrooms are needed in order to serve all school-age children in East Jerusalem. Ir Amim along with East Jerusalem residents has been lobbying the municipality for years to address this severe shortage of schools and classrooms. Empty spaces across the city, including in Sheikh Jarrah, have been proposed to the authorities that can serve such purposes.
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A pink bookbag lies next to books among the ruins of the Salahiyeh family home. 19 Jan 2022
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Yet, the Jerusalem Municipality saw it fit to rather dispossess and displace a Palestinian family to address their systematic neglect of the Palestinian education system in East Jerusalem.
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Want to learn more about Ir Amim's work? Watch our virtual discussions below:
- An Annexed Jerusalem: Settlements, Society, and Separation, featuring Ir Amim's Senior Field Researcher Aviv Tatarsky and Palestinian East Jerusalemite cultural leader Mahmoud Mouna.
- From "United" Jerusalem to Greater Jerusalem: Annexation 1967-2020, featuring acclaimed professor of policy, Menachem Klein, and East Jerusalemite civil society & social justice activist Nivine Sandouka.
- Ir Amim and Breaking the Silence - A City Annexed Together, featuring Breaking the Silence's Executive Director, Avner Gvaryahu, Ir Amim's Executive Director, Yudith Oppenheimer, and Hoqoqna - Our Rights' Executive Director, Nivine Sandouka.
- A Conversation with Prof. Naomi Chazan and Atty. Ziad AbuZayyad, featuring former Palestinian Authority minister, Atty. Ziad AbuZayyad, and former Israeli Knesset member Prof. Naomi Chazan, exploring the long-term effects of the Trump days and if we have better days ahead.
- Silwan & Sheikh Jarrah: Not a 'Real-Estate' Dispute, Ir Amim's virtual conference on measures of mass displacement of Palestinians from East Jerusalem.
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