Israeli security forces on Tuesday, July 11, forcibly evicted a Palestinian family from its home in occupied East Jerusalem following a long-running court case. The Sub Luban family, which lived in the Muslim Quarter of the walled old city since 1953, was thrown out of its house by Israeli police officers and the house was later taken over by illegal Israeli settlers under the protection of the Israeli forces. The forced eviction was carried out after a court order was issued. Palestinian human rights groups noted that the two elderly occupant-owners of the home, 72-year-old Mustafa Sub Luban and his 68-year-old wife Nora Ghaith, were among those forcibly evicted.
According to reports, the family has been fighting the legal battle for more than 45 years. The case began in 1978 after several illegal extremist settler groups, among them Atara Leyoshna and the Galicia Trust, tried to seize the property using an old and discriminatory Israeli law from the 1970s. The law states that Israeli Jews are permitted to reclaim property that was owned by Jews before 1948, the year Israel was founded. This reclamation can also be done by Jews who are not related to the original owners. Following the settlers’ claim to the Suban family property, Israeli authorities placed it under the control of the so-called Custodian of Absentee Properties. The family has categorically rejected the claims that their home was originally inhabited by Jews.
Reports noted that during the forced eviction, a number of Palestinian and Israeli human rights activists staged protests and resisted the Israeli forces’ seizure action. 12 activists taking part in the protests were reportedly arrested by the Israeli police, among them seven women and five men.
Following the news of the eviction, the Israeli authorities came under widespread criticism from the international community. The European Union (EU), in a statement, regretting the eviction urged Israel to “respect international law and let these families live where they have been living for decades.” The UN also denounced the eviction. The head of the UN office of the high commissioner for human rights for occupied Palestinian territory, Ajith Sunghay, said that “concerted efforts to evict Palestinians from their homes in occupied East Jerusalem may amount to forcible transfer,” which is a war crime under international law as well as a violation of the Geneva conventions. He urged Israel to “repeal these laws that have facilitated and allowed settler organizations to target Palestinians such as Nora Gheith and Mustafa Sub Laban and end the practice of forced evictions targeted at Palestinians in East Jerusalem.”
Anti-settlement watchdog group Ir Amim noted that like the Luban family, roughly 150 other Palestinian families living in the old city in Jerusalem and surrounding neighborhoods currently face the risk of forcible eviction under the same or other discriminatory laws. It added that the government and extremist settler groups have colluded to use these laws to evict Palestinians from the area as part of a “strategy to cement Israeli hegemony of the Old city basin, the most religiously and politically sensitive part of Jerusalem and a core issue of the conflict.”
