OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (Palestine Foundation Information Center), The Israeli occupation authority (IOA) has handed a Jerusalemite citizen and his son eviction orders for their two homes in the Batn al-Hawa neighborhood of Silwan district, south of the Aqsa Mosque.
According to the eviction orders, Khalil Basbous and his son Bilal will have to leave their homes by January 5, 2026.
The orders were issued by an Israeli court in favor of the Jewish settler society “Ateret Cohanim,” under the pretext that Yemenite Jews owned the land of the house in the past.
Eight members of the family, including children, live in the two homes. The Israeli court decision comes as part of a policy aimed at emptying the neighborhood of its residents to make way for Jewish settlers.
In another incident, a horde of extremist settlers, under the protection of police forces, took over two Palestinian homes belonging to brothers Nasser and Ayed Rajabi and their mother in the same neighborhood, raising Israeli flags over them.
This came just days after the family was forcibly evicted from their homes in favor of Ateret Cohanim.
Ateret Cohanim is a government-backed Jewish group and educational institute located in the Muslim Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem. It actively works on Judaizing the holy city and expelling its indigenous people, the Jerusalemites, from their homes.
In 2004, Ateret Cohanim embarked on extracting Israeli court decisions that enabled it to seize Palestinian homes and property and displace local families in Silwan and other neighborhoods of the holy city.
Israel’s Judaization activities started in Silwan district and its nearby areas in 1996 when the Jewish neighborhood of Ma’ale Hazeitim emerged as a small settlement on the Mount of Olives in east Jerusalem, inside the Arab neighborhood of Ras al-Amud.
