JERUSALEM: Israeli police on Sunday evicted a Palestinian family from their home in the Muslim Quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City, after the supreme court ruled Jewish claimants were the rightful owners.
An AFP photographer said residents of the neighborhood in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem scuffled with police, who stood guard as about a dozen Israeli settlers took possession of the large building.
A police spokesman said two people were detained.
“They disturbed police activities,” he told AFP but could not say if they were subsequently released.
Rania Abu Asab, who lived in the house with her husband, their children and his aunt, stood weeping outside as the settlers raised the Israeli flag on the roof.
“We live there, it’s my house, it’s my whole life,” she said. “They took everything.”
She said the family was compelled to leave behind all its furniture and belongings.
Ir Amim, an Israeli watchdog group which monitors settlement activity in Jerusalem, reported on February 3 that the Abu Asab family had been served an eviction notice ordering them to vacate the property by February 12.
It said family members had lived there since the 1960s.
Israeli NGO Peace Now said the home originally belonged to a Jewish family which fled during the 1948 war which accompanied Israel’s foundation.
East Jerusalem was occupied during that conflict by Jordan until the 1967 Six-Day War, when it was seized by Israel and subsequently annexed, moves never recognized by the international community.
The Abu Asab family lived until 1948 in a neighborhood it fled before eventually moving to the home in question.
Peace Now said in a statement Sunday that under an Israeli law passed in 1950 Palestinians cannot return to homes they fled in 1948.
A 1970 act, however, decreed that property in east Jerusalem abandoned by Jewish owners could be reclaimed.
“The court granted the settlers the house and the Abu Asab family became refugees for the second time,” Peace Now said.
Israel clears Palestinians from Jerusalem home claimed by settlers
Israel clears Palestinians from Jerusalem home claimed by settlers
- Residents of the neighborhood in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem scuffled with police, who stood guard as about a dozen Israeli settlers took possession of the large building
Over 2,200 Daesh detainees transferred to Iraq from Syria: Iraqi official
- Iraq is still recovering from the severe abuses committed by the terrorists
BAGHDAD: Iraq has so far received 2,225 Daesh group detainees, whom the US military began transferring from Syria last month, an Iraqi official told AFP on Saturday.
They are among up to 7,000 Daesh detainees whose transfer from Syria to Iraq the US Central Command (CENTCOM) announced last month, in a move it said was aimed at “ensuring that the terrorists remain in secure detention facilities.”
Previously, they had been held in prisons and camps administered by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in northeast Syria.
The announcement of the transfer plan last month came after US envoy to Syria Tom Barrack declared that the SDF’s role in confronting Daesh had come to an end.
Saad Maan, head of the security information cell attached to the Iraqi prime minister’s office, told AFP on Saturday that “Iraq has received 2,225 terrorists from the Syrian side by land and air, in coordination with the international coalition,” which Washington has led since 2014 to fight Daesh.
He said they are being held in “strict, regular detention centers.”
A Kurdish military source confirmed to AFP the “continued transfer of Daesh detainees from Syria to Iraq under the protection of the international coalition,” using another name for Daesh.
On Saturday, an AFP photographer near the Kurdish-majority city of Qamishli in northeastern Syria saw a US military convoy and 11 buses with tinted windows.
- Iraq calls for repatriation -
Daesh seized swathes of northern and western Iraq starting in 2014, until Iraqi forces, backed by the international coalition, managed to defeat it in 2017.
Iraq is still recovering from the severe abuses committed by the terrorists.
In recent years, Iraqi courts have issued death and life sentences against those convicted of terrorism offenses.
Thousands of Iraqis and foreign nationals convicted of membership in the group are incarcerated in Iraqi prisons.
On Monday, the Iraqi judiciary announced it had begun investigative procedures involving 1,387 detainees it received as part of the US military’s operation.
In a statement to the Iraqi News Agency on Saturday, Maan said “the established principle is to try all those involved in crimes against Iraqis and those belonging to the terrorist Daesh organization before the competent Iraqi courts.”
Among the detainees being transferred to Iraq are Syrians, Iraqis, Europeans and holders of other nationalities, according to Iraqi security sources.
Iraq is calling on the concerned countries to repatriate their citizens and ensure their prosecution.
Maan noted that “the process of handing over the terrorists to their countries will begin once the legal requirements are completed.”
