Salem Family Displacement Postponed
Judge sends file back to execution and procedure to hold expanded session to decide the case
Jerusalem24 – Today, Monday, the Israeli Magistrate Court in Jerusalem decided to continue the decision to freeze the eviction of the Salem family from their home in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, east of occupied Jerusalem.
The Palestinian Daily, Al-Quds, reported that the Israeli Court held a session to consider a settlement association’s lawsuit to evict Salem’s family in Sheikh Jarrah from its home, during which the judge decided to freeze the eviction decision, after accepting the appeal submitted by the family. He also decided to return the file to the execution and procedure judge to hold an expanded session to decide the case.
After the session ended, Majed Ghanayem, the lawyer for Salem’s family, told WAFA “The decision to freeze the displacement of Salem’s family from Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood continues to be in effect, until a decision is issued soon.”
The lawyers demanded the annulment of the eviction decision, but the judge suspended the decision to issue the confirmation order within days and transfer the file to what is called the Procedure Department due to a defect in the settlers’ procedures. It may open the door to full cancellation.
During the session, human rights activists, institutions, and associations organized a sit-down in front of the court building, in solidarity with the Salem family and the residents of Sheikh Jarrah, and against the plans to displace Palestinian families from the city, and the double standards of the Israeli law system in its dealings with Jews and Palestinians.
Last February, the court froze the eviction of the Salem family from their home, “until a new decision is issued” in this regard, after the Israeli Execution and Collection Authority issued an order last January to implement the decision to evict the family from their home between March 1 and next April.
Salem’s family has lived in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood for about 73 years and owns a house and a plot of land there. For several years, the family has suffered from continuous attacks by settlers. In 1988 they were notified of displacement and eviction, and they were able to freeze the decision in the same year.
In 2012, settlers opened the file again intending to implement the court’s decision issued in 1988 under the “Prescription for Civil Judgment” law, which allows for the execution of the sentence up to 25 years from the date of its issuance.
The house of the Salem family is inhabited by 11 people, some of whom were born and spent their entire lives in it, and the settler associations are trying to displace them, using the so-called Judicial and Administrative Arrangements Law.
More than 200 Palestinian families in occupied Jerusalem face the threat of displacement in favor of settlement associations backed by judicial decisions and government policy.
