OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (The Palestine Information Centre)The Sub Laban family, who were evicted last month from their home in Occupied Jerusalem’s old city following a decades-long legal battle, were ordered to pay $9,000 to cover the costs of the eviction.
On July 11, Israeli forces and settlers expelled the Palestinian family from their home, in which they have lived for 70 years, so settlers could take over.
Jerusalemite Noura Sub Laban stressed that the Israeli occupation is practicing an ethnic cleansing policy against Palestinians.
Sub Laban pointed out that the Israeli authorities have been trying for years to evict her family, and now they are asking for the legal and operational costs of their eviction.
She further pointed to the Israeli systematic policy of displacing Jerusalemites for the profit of settler expansion.
Noura Sub Laban called on the Arab and Islamic world to take a serious position against Israeli repressive policies against Jerusalemites.
The Sub Laban family has been renting the home since 1953, while the eastern half of Jerusalem, including the Old City, was under Jordanian administration.
They were granted protected lease rights, but have faced a costly 45-year legal battle in Israeli courts against government-backed settler organizations to displace them.
When Israel occupied the eastern part of Jerusalem in 1967, the state assumed control over the property before it was transferred to a private Jewish settler organization, Galetzia Trust, which reportedly has ties to the infamous Ateret Cohanim group.
In 2014, an Israeli magistrate court ruled that the family no longer held protected tenant status and that the settlers could displace the family.
That year, six members of the family of eight including the children and grandchildren, were forcibly displaced when the Israeli High Court ruled that they could no longer live there.
In June this year, the high court ruled that the parents, 68-year-old Noura Ghaith and her 72-year-old husband Mustafa Sub Laban, could be expelled anytime between June 28 and July 13 after they had exhausted all legal options
