UNITED NATIONS, Apr 13 (APP): The international community must take immediate action to stop Israel\u2019s forced evictions and displacement of Palestinians in East Jerusalem as part of Israel\u2019s annexation and \u201cde-Palestinianization\u201d of the city, UN rights experts said Thursday.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere has been an ongoing and unchecked tragedy: the forced eviction of Palestinians from their homes,\u201d they said in a joint statement. <\/p>\n
\u201cIsrael\u2019s transfer of its own population into the occupied territory confirms a deliberate intention to colonize the territory it occupies, a practice strictly prohibited by international humanitarian law,\u201d the experts said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt amounts to a prima facie war crime,\u201d they declared.<\/p>\n
The joint statement came from three UN experts: Francesca Albanese, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian Territory occupied since 1967; Balakrishnan Rajagopal, Special Rapporteur on the right to adequate housing; and Paula Gaviria Betancur, Special Rapporteur on the human rights of internally displaced persons.<\/p>\n
After repeatedly raising these issues with the Government of Israel, the experts said, no response had been received to date.<\/p>\n
“Indeed, despite efforts of international organizations and activists, Palestinians under Israeli occupation continue to be forced out of their homes and dispossessed of their land and properties on the basis of discriminatory laws.<\/p>\n
“The laws, designed to consolidate Jewish ownership in Jerusalem, are irredeemably altering the city\u2019s demographic composition and status,” they warned.<\/p>\n
In neighbourhoods adjacent to the Old City of Jerusalem, they added, an estimated 150 Palestinian families were currently at risk of forced eviction and displacement by Israeli authorities and settlers.<\/p>\n
Over the past decades, hundreds of Palestinian properties in occupied East Jerusalem had been taken over by settlers, in part due to a law that claims to allow the transfer of pre-1948 Jewish property to the \u201coriginal Jewish owners\u201d or their \u201cheirs\u201d, the experts said.<\/p>\n
“The current legislation helps settler organizations expropriate Palestinian properties through a manipulation of the law,” they added.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is lawfare in action,\u201d they said. \u201cThe law is discriminatory and acquisitive by design, and no such right to restitution exists for the over 1 million Palestinians and their descendants who were displaced and dispossessed from Jerusalem, Israel, and the rest of the West Bank and Gaza as of 1947 and in 1967.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are still longing for justice,\u201d the UN experts said.<\/p>\n
“Of specific concern are three families that are currently at risk: the Shehades in Silwan, the Ghaith-Sub Labans in the Old City, and the Salems in Sheikh Jarrah. Despite living in their homes for many decades under a protected tenancy lease, these families have faced eviction lawsuits filed by settler organizations seeking to take over their properties for years.<\/p>\n
“The Ghaith-Sub Laban family has already exhausted all legal avenues to challenge the eviction order,” they said, adding that Israeli authorities had served them with a notice to vacate their house by Apri0 25l, or face forced eviction.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is in blatant violation of international law that does not confer the occupying power the authority to change the local legislation unless strictly required by security needs: settler-colonial intent and interests are not a security need,\u201d the experts said.<\/p>\n
The establishment and expansion of settlements “constitutes a grave breach of international law, prosecutable under the Rome Statute\u201d, the experts said, emphasizing that no state should passively acquiesce with these illegal acts to \u201ctrump the rights of Palestinians to self-determination, adequate housing, property, non-discrimination\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor the Palestinians, the enjoyment of human rights is a far-off hope as the suppression of these rights is part of the very architecture of the Israeli occupation,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe almost 56-year-long occupation and the way it is allowed to conduct itself with general impunity and without consequences, makes a farce of international law and the credibility of the system mandated to enforce it,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe occupation must end with all deliberate speed and until that day, Israel must comply fully with international humanitarian law and international human rights law obligations,\u201d the experts stressed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 13 (APP): The international community must take immediate action to stop Israel\u2019s forced evictions and displacement of Palestinians in East Jerusalem as part of Israel\u2019s annexation and \u201cde-Palestinianization\u201d of the city, UN rights experts said Thursday. \u201cThere has been an ongoing and […]<\/p>\n
\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":75665,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[270],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-75664","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-top-news"],"yoast_head":"\n