Israeli settlers storm Palestinian family land in Sheikh Jarrah, violently attack residents
Occupied Jerusalem (QNN)- Extremist Israeli settlers on Friday morning stormed land owned by Palestinian family of Salem in Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in East Jerusalem, before attacking residents and fencing the land, in an attempt to take over it.
Local sources said that dozens of extremist Israeli settlers, backed by forces, stormed the Salem family land in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood earlier today, violently attacked residents, and started fencing the land, as a prelude to seize it.
The settlers also beat a Palestinian woman from the neighborhood for trying to prevent them from entering the land, breaking her arm.
Watch | Confrontations erupt afteeIsraeli colonial settlers, under the protection of IOF, stormed a land owned by Salem family in Sheikh Jarrah in an attempt to seize it and attacked Palestinian citizens.#SaveSheikhJarrah pic.twitter.com/qyZHS90KyD
— Quds News Network (@QudsNen) January 21, 2022
Watch | Israeli colonial settlers, under the protection of IOF, storm a land owned by Salem family in Sheikh Jarrah in an attempt to seize it and attack Palestinian citizens#SaveSheikhJarrah pic.twitter.com/XnS93ljfBw
— Quds News Network (@QudsNen) January 21, 2022
Watch | Israeli colonial settlers, under the protection of IOF, raided a land owned by Salem family in Sheikh Jarrah in an attempt to seize it and assaulted a Palestinian woman, breaking her hand.#SaveSheikhJarrah pic.twitter.com/scNO9KTDFB
— Quds News Network (@QudsNen) January 21, 2022
The Palestinian family of Salem from the Sheikh Jarrah is also threatened to be forcibly displaced from its house by the Israeli occupation authorities.
The Salem family has been living in its house for over 73 years, since 1951 – currently home to three generations. However, the Israeli occupation authorities have ordered the family to be displaced.
After Israeli settler NGOs lodged a claim to the property, an Israeli court ruled in 2021 that the family of 11, including four children, had to be forcibly displaced by December 29, 2021.
The forced displacement was temporarily halted by an Israeli court on December 23 after a police request following protests and confrontations between Palestinians and Israeli occupation forces.
But it is now set to take place at an unspecified date this month, with the family unable to make further appeals.
The forced displacement notice was delivered to the matriarch of the family, 74-year-old Fatima Salem, by a right-wing Israeli activist and Jerusalem city council member Yonatan Yosef on December 9.
He, along with deputy Jerusalem mayor, Arieh King, claimed to have bought the house from its Jewish owners who had possession of the property before 1948.
The Salem family became refugees in 1948, when some 700,000 Palestinians were forcefully expelled from their homes and land when ‘Israel’ was founded.
In 1951, the family leased the house under a protected tenancy agreement from the Jordanian Custodian of Enemy Property, which had been established to handle property taken from Jews in areas controlled by Jordan after the 1948 Arab–Israeli war. ‘Israel’ later seized control of East Jerusalem during the 1967 war.
“My parents have lived here since 1951. I was born here, I got married here and I gave birth to all my children here. My three sons, their wives and children all live here now,” Fatima told Al Jazeera.
“We have no other place to go and we can’t afford to rent a new place. We could end up in the street in the cold and rainy winter weather.”
“The stress is unbearable. We all struggle to sleep at night and this makes my health problems worse.”
In 2021, at least 317 Palestinians were forcibly displaced from their homes in East Jerusalem, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), while 161 structures were demolished under the pretext of lacking a building permit which the Israeli occupation authorities make difficult to obtain.
The Salem family is one of hundreds of Palestinian families in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood who are threatened with forced displacement from their houses by the Israeli occupation authorities.
Israeli occupation forces also demolished Salhiya family house after raiding their house in Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in occupied Jerusalem in the early morning hours of Wednesday, violently arresting and assaulting family members.
