East Jerusalem:Jewish Settlers Seize 15 Palestinian Homes in Silwan
Friday, April 9, 2021 at 01:35PM 8 April 2021. Blg News/slider The Palestine Chronicle
The East Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan. (Photo: OCHA, File)
Jewish settlers seized 15 Palestinian houses in the occupied East Jerusalem district of Silwan, Israel’s Channel 7 reported.
According to the channel, the settlers placed Israeli flags on 15 houses in Silwan after the Ateret Cohanim organization seized them and handed them to settler families.
Ateret Cohanim is a government-backed Jewish group and educational institute located in the Muslim Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem. It actively works on Judaising the holy city and expelling its indigenous Palestinian residents from their homes.
The channel pointed out that these new seized homes joined 22 others that were recently taken over by Ateret Cohanim.
In 2004, Ateret Cohanim began applying to Israeli courts to enable it to seize Palestinian homes and property and displace local families in Silwan and other neighborhoods in the Holy City.
“While the Israeli State claims to play an impartial role in this scheme, it is actually the facilitator of the entire process,” Palestinian journalist and editor of The Palestine Chronicle Ramzy Baroud wrote in a recent article.
“The final outcome manifests in the ever-predictable scene, where an Israeli flag is triumphantly hoisted over a Palestinian home and a Palestinian family is assigned an UN-supplied tent and a few blankets,” Baroud added.
(Palestine Chronicle, MEMO, Social Media)
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Settler Group Takes Over Three East Jerusalem Buildings, Expanding Jewish Enclave
by Nir Hasson 8 April 2021 Haaretz
Ateret Cohanim activists, accompanied by Israeli police, take over at least 16 apartments purchased from their Palestinian owners in the neighborhood of Silwan, in the latest move in what local councilwoman dubs 'racist struggle'
Ateret Cohanim activists, accompanied by large Israeli police force, moved into the buildings, which contain at least 16 apartments, at around 2 A.M.
Fifteen Jewish families already lived in Betan al-Hawa, or the Yemenite quarter. The buildings taken over on Thursday were sold by their Palestinian owners, in one of the largest purchases on East Jerusalem property by settlers in several years.
These buildings are also near the Ma’aleh Hazeitim neighborhood where about 120 Jewish families reside.
The Abu Dihab family, one of the biggest Palestinian families in Silwan, issued a statement condemning a member of the family who apparently sold one of the buildings to Ateret Cohanim.
Another local family said to have sold the other two buildings issued a statement, where it said they were sold four months ago to a Palestinian who vowed not to sell it on to Jews.
Laura Wharton, a Jerusalem city councilor from left-wing party Meretz, said in response that “the Israeli government and Jerusalem City council are being dragged by the far-right into turning issues of housing and urban development into a racist struggle. In recent years, about 100 settlers in Ras al-Amud, where 25,000 Palestinians live, have received investments of tens of millions to facilitate their entry into the neighborhood which has suffered from continuous neglect.”
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Ateret Cohanim responded: “May a new light shine on Zion. With God’s mercy we have entered three buildings between Shiloah and Ma’ale Hazeitim last night, about 25 apartments. May God build Jerusalem!”
Far-right lawmaker Bezalel Smotrich, leader of the Religious Zionism party, tweeted: “A new light of Zion continues to shine… Ateret Cohanim pioneers redeemed three houses last night … more children shall play on the streets of the holy city and more voices of redemption and building the country.”
In 1899, during the period of Ottoman rule in Jerusalem, a section of buildings in Silwan was registered by the Moshe Benvenisti Trust with Jerusalem’s Sharia court as housing for poor immigrants from Yemen. The neighborhood was abandoned in 1938 on the orders of the British Mandate government druing the Arab uprising at the time, and the homes were demolished over time. A Palestinian neighborhood was built at the site, where about 700 people now live.