Abu
Kamel of the Al-Kurd family, evicted by Israel from their home in
Occupied East Jerusalem on the 9th November, has died after suffering
from a severe heart-attack.
This comes two weeks after he was
taken immediately to hospital following the night-time invasion and
forcible eviction from his home of 52 years by Israeli forces.
The funeral will be held at 11am, 23rd November in Sheikh Jarrah, Occupied East Jerusalem.
Suffering
from dangerously high blood pressure, in the aftermath of his family’s
eviction from the emblematic house in Sheikh Jarrah and consequently
being left homeless, 61 year-old Abu Kamel suffered from a
deterioration with his long-term health problems and was re-admitted to
hospital at around 10pm, Saturday 22nd November. It was soon announced
that he had suffered from a heart-attack and died.
Fawzia
al-Kurd has now lost her husband and her family home within two weeks
due to the Israeli state’s campaign expand Jewish settlements in the
Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood. Despite high-profile formal complaints
from the US State department, numerous foreign consulates, and European
politicians, who openly questioned the legality of the settlers claims,
Israel violently pursued its plans to evict the refugees from 1948.
The
price of Israel’s political campaign against the refugees now includes
the life of a 61 year-old man. As aide to Palestinian Prime Minister
Salam Fayyad, Haten Abdelkader stated
on the 9th November, ” They want to expel Palestinians from Sheikh
Jarrah. It is an escalation before the municipal elections,”. He also
noted that as the expulsion went ahead even though the decision is
being appealed that this “demonstrates the problem is no longer legal,
but political.” (AFP)
It should also be noted that after having
been made refugees from West Jerusalem in 1948, the al-Kurd family were
subsequently made refugees a second and third time as Israel evicted
them from their home on the 9th November before proceeding to destroy
the tent that was established on the 19th November.
The health
of Abu Kamel was central to the Israeli campaign to occupy the al-Kurd
house. In 2001, as the family was abroad in Jordan visiting Abu Kamel
while he was receiving treatment, settlers broke into part of the
family home that they have continued to occupy ever since.
The
Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in East Jerusalem was built by the UN and
Jordanian government in 1956 to house Palestinian refugees from the
1948 war. The al-Kurd family began living in the neighbourhood after
having been made refugees from Jaffa and West Jerusalem. However, with
the the start of the Israeli occupation of East Jerusalem, following
the 1967 war, settlers began claiming ownership of the land the Sheikh
Jarrah neighborhood was build on.
Stating that they had
purchased the land from a previous Ottoman owner in the 1800s, settlers
claimed ownership of the land. In 1972 settlers successfully registered
this claim with the Israeli Land Registrar. While the al-Kurds family
continued legal proceedings challenging the settlers claim, the
settlers started filing suits against the Palestinian family.
In
2006, the court ruled the settlers claim void, recognizing it was based
on fraudulent documents. Subsequently, the Al-Kurd family lawyer
petitioned the Israeli Land Registrar to revoke the settlers
registration of the land and state the correct owner of the land.
Although it did revoke the settlers claim, the Israeli land Registrar
refused to indicate the rightful owner of the land.
In 2001
settlers began occupying an extension of the al-Kurd home. Despite the
fact that their claim to the land was revoked, settlers were given the
keys of the al-Kurds family home extension by the local Israeli
municipality. This was possible after the municipality had confiscated
the keys of the extension that the al-Kurd family built on their
property to house the natural expansion of the family.
When
this extension was declared illegal by Israeli authorities, the Israeli
municipality handed the keys over to Israeli settlers. The al-Kurd
family went to court and an eviction order was issued against the
settlers. When the al-Kurd family were evicted on the 9th November
2008, the settlers were allowed to remain in the property, despite
their own eviction order.
In July 2008 the Israeli Supreme
Court ordered the eviction of the al-Kurd family, for their refusal to
pay rent to the settlers for use of the land. Although the settlers
claim to the land had been revoked two years earlier, the court instead
based their decision on an agreement made between a previous lawyer and
the settlers. It should be noted that the al-Kurd family -and the
Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood as a whole- rejected this agreement and
fired their legal representative at the time.
Bron
