JERUSALEM, 30 November 2020, (TON): In October, the Israeli magistrate court of Jerusalem ruled to evict 12 of the 24 Palestinian families in Sheikh Jarrah and to give their homes to Israeli Jewish settlers. The court also ruled that each family must pay 70,000 shekels ($20,000) in fees to cover the settlers’ legal expenses.

For at least a dozen Palestinian families living in the occupied East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah, the threat of eviction from their homes looms over their heads, paralysing any thoughts of the future.

The families were given 30 days to file an appeal, but most expressed little hope for a ruling in their favour, saying the Israeli judiciary is no more than an instrument of the Israeli occupation policy of forcibly displacing and erasing the Palestinian presence in Jerusalem.

“Since the eviction order, we’ve been living with the daily anxiety of not knowing when the Israeli army will come and evict us from our home,” said Ahmad Hammad, a resident of Sheikh Jarrah.

Sheikh Jarrah, located on the slopes of Mount Scopus just north of the Old City, is home to 3,000 Palestinians, all refugees who were ethnically cleansed from their homes in other parts of historical Palestine during the 1948 Nakba.

Israel’s settlements and eviction of Palestinians violate international humanitarian law, which prohibits the occupying power from transferring its civilian population into the territories it occupies. As Israel’s targeting of Jerusalem is continuing at a heightened pace.