Nora Ghaith (68) and her husband Mustafa Sub Laban (72) were recently served an eviction order by the Israeli Enforcement and Collection Authority, demanding they vacate their home and their belongings by June 11, 2023. Thereafter, the elderly couple can be evicted by force to make way for an Israeli settler organization to seize their home in the Muslim Quarter of the Old City. The Ghaith-Sub Laban family expects the eviction to be forcibly carried out as soon as June 11. 
 
The family of veteran Ir Amim staff member, Ahmad Sub Laban, has been embroiled in a 45-year legal battle against persistent attempts by the state and settler groups to displace them and takeover their home for Jewish settlement. The family rented the house in 1953 from the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and as such was afforded protected tenancy rights. After 45 years of recurring lawsuits and harassment by the Israeli authorities and settler organizations, the Supreme Court recently ruled to terminate the family’s protected tenancy status and evict them from their home. See full case details below. 

All legal recourse has been exhausted. Therefore, engagement with the Israeli government to halt this eviction is vital. 

Additional Families Under Threat of Eviction
The Ghaith-Sub Laban family are among six Palestinian families, numbering over 80 people, from the Old City and its environs who were concurrently facing impending eviction or potentially decisive hearings on eviction cases in March 2023. Updates on the cases may be found below:

In the case of the Salem family from the Um Haroun portion of Sheikh Jarrah, the administrative hearing at the Enforcement and Collection Authority, originally scheduled for March 9, was postponed due to their attorney falling ill. No new date for the hearing has been issued.

However, beyond the looming threat of eviction, the Salem family was unexpectedly served a demolition order in mid-March, demanding the family demolish a portion of the home under the pretext of lacking a building permit. On April 24, municipal officers accompanied by the police arrived at their home and stipulated that if the family does not carry out the demolition by the following weekend, the municipality will execute the demolition along with imposing hefty fines. This has caused extreme distress for the family. As of today, the demolition has not been carried out. It is therefore critical to ensure the Israeli authorities do not proceed forward with the demolition. 

In the case of the Shehadeh family from Batan al-Hawa, Silwan, a decision on the family's request to appeal to the Supreme Court is still pending. The District Court  ordered the family's eviction by March 1, 2023, however, the family filed a leave to appeal to the Supreme Court, which effectively froze the eviction until a decision is issued on the request. 

In the cases of the Dajani, Daoud, and Hammad Families from the Kerem al Jaouni section of Sheikh Jarrah, the Supreme Court hearing on their appeal, scheduled for March 29, was postponed per the request of the settler-affiliated company of Nahalat Shimon. No new date for the hearing has yet to be set. 

For further details on the aforementioned cases, see our previous alert on the issue.

These families are among some 150 Palestinian families – totaling over 1000 people – across the Old City and its surrounding Palestinian neighborhoods who are under threat of displacement via eviction due to discriminatory laws and state collusion with settler groups. If the evictions are carried out, this would not only constitute an acute violation of human rights and International Law, but also carry a severe humanitarian impact on the families.
 
Settler Exploitation of Discriminatory Laws
A common thread between the abovementioned cases is that the lawsuits were filed by settler groups on the basis of the 1970 Legal and Administrative Matters law. This discriminatory law exclusively affords Jews with land restitution rights for assets allegedly owned by Jews in East Jerusalem prior to 1948 despite many of these properties now inhabited by Palestinian refugees. No parallel legal mechanism exists for Palestinians to recover pre-1948 assets on the Israeli side of the Green Line now inhabited by Jews. To the contrary, the 1950 Absentee Property Law enshrines that Palestinians who were forced to abandon their homes in what became Israel due to the war of 1948 cannot retrieve them.
 
Settler organizations aided by state bodies act to secure ownership rights of these assets through various means despite having no relation to the previous Jewish owners or occupants. Acquisition of these rights provides settler groups with the legal platform to then “retrieve” the property from the General Custodian and initiate eviction lawsuits against Palestinian families through application of the 1970 law.

A department within the Ministry of Justice, the General Custodian is the Israeli body responsible for managing pre-1948 Jewish assets in East Jerusalem until “reclaimed.” It should be noted that the General Custodian has become one of the leading state institutions who works in cooperation with settler groups to facilitate evictions of Palestinians and seizure of their homes in East Jerusalem. Many of the families facing eviction are Palestinian refugees who lost homes on the Israeli side of the Green Line in 1948 and now stand to be displaced for a second or even third time.  
 
Ghaith-Sub Laban Case Details
The District Court ruled in November 2022 to uphold the eviction demand filed by the Atara Leyoshna settler organization and instructed the Ghaith-Sub Laban family to vacate the property by January 31, 2023. A leave to appeal to the Supreme Court was filed and subsequently rejected in early February 2023. The court ordered the family's eviction by March 15. The family refused to comply and was served an eviction order by the Enforcement and Collection Authority on May 11, demanding they vacate their home by June 11. Thereafter, the family is subject to forcible removal. 

The Ghaith-Sub Laban family has been embroiled in more than a 40-year legal battle to maintain its protected tenancy and beat back continual attempts by the Atara Leyoshna settler group to assume control of the family’s apartment where they have resided since 1953. It should be noted that Atara Leyoshna is affiliated with the Ateret Cohanim settler organization who is behind the mass eviction lawsuits in Batan al-Hawa, Silwan and attempts to take over the iconic Christian hotel properties near Jaffa Gate.
 
The Ghaith-Sub Laban family first rented the apartment from the Jordanian Custodian of Enemy Property (property allegedly owned by Jews prior to 1948) in 1953, at which point it was granted protected tenancy status. The family has consistently maintained this status and continued to pay rent to the Israeli General Custodian, which assumed control of properties administered by the Jordanian Custodian after 1967. Despite their protected tenancy status, the Ghaith-Sub Laban family have been under unrelenting threat of eviction since 1978, first by the General Custodian and later by Atara Leyoshna.
 
Other Palestinian families living in the family's building have been gradually evicted over the years and their apartments handed over to settlers. In an attempt to force out the Ghaith-Sub Laban family, settlers even blocked the stairway leading to their apartment for many years. For 15 years, the apartment could only be entered through a neighbor's unit, until the Court ordered the stairway unsealed in 2001.
 
Atara Leyoshna’s Acquisition of the Sub-Laban’s Apartment
In May 2010, the General Custodian conveyed the apartment to Atara Leyoshna on the basis of the aforementioned 1970 law. Soon after receiving rights to the Sub-Laban apartment, Atara Leyoshna filed an eviction claim against the family. After the lower courts ruled to the evict the Sub Laban family in favor of the settler group, their case reached the Supreme Court in 2016.
 
The court ruled that Nora Ghaith and Mustafa Sub Laban (Ahmad’s parents) could remain in their home, yet only for another 10 years, after which their protected tenancy would be terminated. The ruling did not apply to the third generation of protected tenants--Ahmad and his siblings, including those still living with their parents in the home. As such, the Sub Laban's children were prohibited from continuing to reside with their parents.
 
In 2019, the settler group filed another eviction lawsuit against the family, claiming that they had violated the terms of protected tenancy by spending long periods away from their home. Despite evidence showing the Ghaith-Sub Laban couple spent time away due to recurring health issues, the lower courts ruled to evict the family in favor of the settler group. The Supreme Court this time denied the family’s request to appeal, ending an over 40-year legal battle over the Sub Laban’s home by authorizing the family's eviction. It should be noted that they are being forcibly evicted three years before conclusion of the 10-year protected tenancy period upon which the Supreme Court had originally ruled.

Undermining Palestinian rights and Thwarting a Political Agreement
Evictions of Palestinian families and settler takeovers of their homes have increasingly been used as a strategy to cement Israeli hegemony of the Old City Basin, the most religiously and politically sensitive part of Jerusalem and a core issue of the conflict. These measures are reinforced by a constellation of settler-operated tourist sites, which together serve to alter the character of the space and forge a ring of Israeli control around the area. This creates an irreversible reality on the ground that deliberately subverts efforts towards an agreed political resolution on Jerusalem.  

Moreover, such actions severely violate the individual and collective rights of Palestinians in the city and contravenes International Law, while exacting an acute humanitarian toll on the affected families.

Since the eviction claims are based on inherently discriminatory laws, the legal recourse is limited. The political nature of these measures hence requires state intervention as a result of concerted engagement.

All efforts must be made to end these measures of dispossession and to secure a sustainable solution which will safeguard the families' rights to their homes, communities, and city.