00:00His home is gone.
00:02Yaqub al-Rajabi and his family were evicted a short while ago from their home in Batn al-Hawah in
00:07Silwan,
00:08a neighborhood in Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem.
00:11Now he can only observe from a distance.
00:14Israeli settlers have hung flags from his former home.
00:19This is my home. I was born here. I got married here and raised all my children here.
00:24I'm speaking not only about myself but also about my uncles.
00:28More than 70 people have lived in this house, not including the Basbus family, who are more than 20 people.
00:36How do you think someone would feel when they come and take away your dreams and your home?
00:40The home where you were born, got married and raised your children.
00:44Of course it's deeply painful and suffocating.
00:51Israeli settlers have taken over houses here one by one.
00:54As soon as a Palestinian family is evicted, Israeli settlers move in.
00:59Now the Israeli police evicted several Palestinian families this morning.
01:04And their homes are now being handed over to Israeli settlers.
01:08And this is what is left from the homes of Palestinian families who lived here for decades.
01:15People here have fought eviction orders for decades in Israeli courts.
01:20The courts, including the Supreme Court, have ruled in favour of the evictions.
01:25They came in the morning around 8.30 or 9, knocked on the doors, emptied the houses of men, women
01:31and children
01:32and moved them about 500 metres away from the site.
01:36What can I tell you? Occupation will not be merciful to you. It will certainly be unjust.
01:46Israeli law works against them. It allows Jewish Israelis to claim property owned by family members prior to the state
01:53establishment in 1948,
01:55while denying the same right to Palestinians and their descendants.
01:59For many years, settler organizations have laid their claim on the area as it is in proximity to the holy
02:06sites in the old city, the Haram al-Sharif or Temple Mount.
02:12One of them is At-Teret Kohanim, an organization which aims to expand the presence of Jewish Israelis inside this
02:19Palestinian neighborhood.
02:21The organization has been helping to evict Palestinian inhabitants of Batn al-Hawah or to buy their homes.
02:28This is based on a claim that parts of the land belong to a 19th century Jewish Yemenite trust whose
02:35community members had to leave in the 1930s.
02:39I feel great about it, but I feel great about the fact that the Jews are returning after being driven
02:45out.
02:45One has to always feel something about the family that was living there.
02:51But my primary thoughts are always with the Jews that were driven out in 1938.
02:57That's my primary focus. I don't have to think about an illegal squatter.
03:02And Palestinians here are not just facing evictions, they are also facing demolitions.
03:09For years, the one has been targeted by settler groups backed by government policies.
03:14Now, not only are Palestinians evicted from their homes, but what we are seeing here in the Al-Bustan area,
03:21there are also widespread demolitions.
03:23And what used to be a pathway just going from there here through the neighborhood is no longer here.
03:31Just below Batn al-Hawah, some 40 homes and other structures were demolished by the municipalities since October 2023 for
03:40lack of building permits, which Palestinians almost never receive.
03:46This city is very much influenced by both voices within city hall and in the city and in the government
03:54that want to give preference to planning that will benefit settlers in East Jerusalem.
03:59And they're less concerned with seeing to the needs of the Palestinian population, which has actually grown faster since 1967
04:07than the Israeli Jewish population.
04:10So there's definitely a bias here. And it's very, very worrisome to me because the city hall is supposed to
04:18serve all the residents and it does not serve all of them equally.
04:23The area will be cleared to build a contentious archaeological tourism park managed by a settler organization.
04:31Abu Talal Awad lost parts of his home and the walls to his property were demolished. The bulldozers came after
04:37Ramadan ended.
04:41Yesterday there were fences here, a door here, an olive tree here, mint planted. Now the world is different. It's
04:49something else. Total ruin today. Just ruins you can see.
04:56Affordable housing in occupied East Jerusalem is rare in options view. According to the United Nations, over 200 Palestinian households
05:05in East Jerusalem face eviction cases filed against them in Israeli courts, mostly by settlers.
05:12Palestinians here fear they will be driven out of their city.
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