WUNRN
PALESTINE/ISRAEL - FORCED EVICTIONS
OF EAST JERUSALEM PALESTINIAN FAMILIES - WOMEN & CHILDREN - ISSUES OF
RIGHTS & INTERNATIONAL LAW
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YWCA
of Palestine and World YWCA Call for Action to End Forced Eviction of
Palestinians in East Jerusalem
04
August 2009
In the early morning of Sunday August 2, 2009 Israeli police, accompanied by members of the Israeli occupation forces, forcibly evicted eight Palestinian families from their homes in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood of occupied East Jerusalem.
Israel, as the occupying power in East Jerusalem, is prohibited under international humanitarian law from destroying private property unless such destruction is considered necessary for military operations. But for many Palestinians, their homes are under constant threat of destruction. The Hanoun and Ghawi families, evicted on Sunday to make room for Jewish settlers, are the latest victims of Israel’s illegal settlement plan across East Jerusalem. The Hanoun family is next door to the YWCA of Jerusalem, the national headquarters of the YWCA of Palestine.
The YWCA of Palestine in East Jerusalem provides vocational and leadership training for women and girls. “You should see the street of the YWCA, tons of police cars and police,” said Mira Rizek, General Secretary YWCA of Palestine, as she described the scene the following day, “There are Israelis, peace groups, foreigners, press and Palestinians, of course, sitting opposite the house as a strike in. The police are not allowing anyone to get close to the site. The house is exactly the next house to the YWCA—the wall of their house is our wall as well, so you can imagine the feeling we have now and the risks we are anticipating.”
According to a press release from the Civic Coalition for Defending Palestinian Rights in Jerusalem, the houses destroyed on Sunday were built by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) under a joint construction project with the Jordanian government in 1956, 11 years prior to the Israeli occupation of East Jerusalem. But both the District Court and the High Court of Justice have justified these evictions by declaring that the houses are built on disputed land.
The World YWCA calls on the YWCA movement and partners to take immediate action and advocate for an end to forced eviction and house demolition in Sheikh Jarrah, East Jerusalem and the rest of the Occupied Territories of Palestine. The World YWCA Council has adopted several resolutions on the Middle East; the 2007 resolution called on the YWCA movement to recognise how the escalating military aggression in the Middle East is adversely affecting the Israeli and Arab Peoples, especially women and children. The resolution further urges for the implementation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 that calls for the engagement and empowerment of women in conflict resolution.
Action Ideas:
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By
BEN HUBBARD, Associated Press Writer - August 2,
2009
JERUSALEM – Israeli police evicted two Palestinian families in east Jerusalem on Sunday, then allowed Jewish settlers to move into their homes, drawing criticism from Palestinians, the United Nations and the State Department.
Police arrived before dawn and cordoned off part of the Arab neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah before forcibly removing more than 50 people, said Chris Gunness, spokesman for the U.N. agency in charge of Palestinian refugees.
U.N. staff later saw vehicles bringing Jewish settlers to move into the homes, he said.
Israeli police cited a ruling by the country's Supreme Court that the houses belonged to Jews and that the Arab families had been living there illegally.
Gunness said the families had lived in the homes for more than 50 years.
The status of east Jerusalem is one of the most explosive issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Israel took control of east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war and annexed it, a move not recognized by any other country. Since then, Israel has to boosted the Jewish presence there, building neighborhoods where about 180,000 Jews live. The Palestinians want east Jerusalem as the capital of their hoped-for state.
Organizations linked to the Jewish West Bank settlement movement also have bought properties inside Palestinian neighborhoods in Jerusalem and moved Israelis in.
About 270,000 Palestinians live in east Jerusalem, or 35 percent of the city's total population of 760,000.
The international community has pressured Israel to refrain from evicting
Palestinians and building new homes for Jews in east Jerusalem, saying such
moves hamper peacemaking efforts.
State Department spokeswoman Megan Mattson said such actions in east Jerusalem constitute violations of Israel's obligations under U.S.-backed "road map" peace plan.
"Unilateral actions taken by either party cannot prejudge the outcome of negotiations and will not be recognized by the international community," she said in a statement.
Robert Serry, the U.N. Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, called Sunday's evictions "totally unacceptable."
"These actions heighten tensions and undermine international efforts to create conditions for fruitful negotiations to achieve peace," he said in a statement.
Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat also condemned the move.
"While Israeli authorities have promised the American administration that home demolitions, home evictions and other provocations against Palestinian Jerusalemites would be stopped, what we've seen on the ground is completely the opposite," he said in a statement.
Khawla Hanoun, 35, who lived in one of the homes, said police ordered her and 16 family members to leave the house before dawn and forced them out at gunpoint when they refused.
"Now our future is in the streets," she said. "We will remain steadfast until we return home. By any method, we must go back home."
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UN News Centre
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=31662&Cr=palestin&Cr1=z
3 August 2009 – A senior United Nations envoy has
deplored Israel’s “unacceptable” evictions of Palestinian refugee families from
the homes in East Jerusalem, stressing that the move only serves to amplify
already high tensions and block progress towards the peace process.
Dozens of people registered with the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) were forced out by Israeli security forces over the weekend from the Arab neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah, with Israeli settlers moving into their homes.
“These actions are contrary to the provisions of the Geneva Conventions related to the occupied territory,” Robert Serry, UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, said in a statement issued yesterday in Jerusalem.
The evictions, he said, flout the united calls by the international community, including those by the diplomatic Quartet comprising the UN, the United States, the European Union and Russia.
In a joint communiqué issued after a June meeting, the Quartet called on Israel “to refrain from provocative actions in East Jerusalem, including home demolition and evictions.”
According to UNRWA spokesperson Chris Gunness, the evicted families’ belongings were loaded onto trucks and dumped at the edge of a busy Jerusalem road.
Today, the UN agency helped the refugees – who lived in their houses for over half a century – recover their possessions, he said.
“Of the 53 people evicted, 20 are children and are reported to be particularly traumatized,” Mr. Gunness said.
Mr. Serry said in his statement that the UN rejects Israeli claims that the evictions are a matter for municipal and domestic courts, urging Israel to abide by international law and its obligations under the Roadmap plan for Israel and Palestine to live side by side in peace.
Last week, he condemned the Israeli security forces’ takeover of a house in Sheikh Jarrah, noting that the recent “upsurge in orders for house demolitions and evictions in East Jerusalem is contrary to the Roadmap. Any settlement activity in East Jerusalem is contrary to international law and cannot prejudice the outcome of negotiations.”
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