It should have been the final resolution for a dispute that spans more than three decades, but it has not been.
Palestinians threatened with eviction in the disputed neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah in East Jerusalem have rejected the proposal to rent their houses to a Jewish settlement organization.
The plan was proposed on Monday by the Supreme Court of Justice of Israel in an attempt to end the long legal fight.
With the proposed initiative, the four Palestinian families could remain in their homes in Sheikh Jarrah if they recognized that the land on which they are raised belongs to an organization of Jewish settlers who acquired their property.
According to the court’s plan, the Palestinians, among dozens of families threatened with eviction, would remain as “protected tenants” that they cannot be evicted in the foreseeable future as long as they pay rent to the Jewish organization that owned the land, a status quo that existed until the decade of 1980.
This dispute has been at the center of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in recent months and was one of the triggers of the brief war between Israel and Hamas last May.
But the Palestinians say they want recognition of their property rights.
“They pressured us a lot to come to an agreement with the Israeli settlers where we would be renting to the settler organizations, “said Muhammad el-Kurd, from one of the families involved.
” Of course this is rejected. ”
The families’ lawyer rejected the claims of the Israelis s about the properties, but said he hoped that an agreement could still be reached.
“The main objective of Palestinian families is to maintain and ensure their presence in their homes,” Sami Irshaid told the BBC.
“So if a resolution came from the court, perhaps not with a full declaration on Palestinian rights, it can be something satisfactory for Palestinian families.”
Rights dispute
The situation of the Palestinians in Sheikh Jarrah has captured international attention and has become an issue that mobilizes those who oppose the establishment of Jewish settlements.
The head of the Human Rights Office of the UN made an ll appeal to Israel not to carry out any evictions in Sheikh Jarrah, warning that such an action could constitute a war crime under international law.
Israel occupied East Jerusalem during the Six Day War in 1967 and actually annexed it later. The Israeli government does not consider that area as occupied territory but as one more part of Jerusalem, a city that it designated as its capital, an act that is not recognized by most of the international community.
The Israeli authorities maintain that the issue of Sheikh Jarrah is not a State matter, but a private property dispute subject to court decisions.
Palestinians have maintained that they are the rightful owners of the property that they said had been guaranteed to them by Jordan when it settled the families there after it occupied the area in the Arab-Israeli war of 1948.
However, a Jerusalem court rejected in 2020 the arguments of the Palestinians, which confirmed the eviction order that favored the organization of settlers than in 2003 had purchased the titles on that land with a view to establishing settlements.
The Palestinians see the case as part of a broader movement of Israeli settlers to seize Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem, which the former claim as the capital of an independent state yet to be created.
In 2003, the rights to the land where they live in Sheikh Jarrah were bought by a Jewish organization planning to develop the area for Jewish settlements.
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