Ramallah: Concern has been expressed about moves by the Israeli occupation authorities to seize Palestinian land in occupied East Jerusalem.
Palestinians of occupied East Jerusalem currently own only 13 per cent of the land in that locality and the Israeli government is in the process of putting in place new rules under the Israeli Custodian of Absentee Property, which will enable the occupying state to seize half of that remaining land under the pretext that the owners of those lands live in the nearby West Bank, and not in the holy city itself.
According to Khalil Tafakji, a community leader and head of the Maps Department of the Orient House, the headquarters of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, 6.5 per cent of the land Palestinians have owned since before the 1967 Israeli occupation of the holy city will end up in the hands of the Israeli colonists for colony expansion or for new colonies.
“West Bank owners of lands in the occupied East Jerusalem will very shortly lose their properties in the holy city. Their properties have already been moved to the Israeli Custodian of Absentee Property on the unofficial record and the government is just waiting for the right time to impose the drafted law to make it official and legal,” he told Gulf News.
“The ongoing negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians and the current regional conditions have made the Israelis postpone the official issuance of the law.”
Tafakji said that half the Palestinian properties in East Jerusalem are owned by West Bankers who have not been allowed in to the holy city, adding that the Israelis now claim that those owners are not entitled to the properties. It is believed that the occupation’s Custodian of Absentee Property will hand the land to individual Israeli colonists and to colonist organisations.
Tafakji explained that in 1967, the Israeli occupation government extended the boundaries of Jerusalem from 6.5 square kilometres to 72 square kilometres and thereby the Israeli government seized lands from 28 nearby Palestinian cities, towns and villages. “All the nearby empty areas were added to the boundaries of Jerusalem and that was the reason we have West Bank based owners of lands which are now within Jerusalem’s boundaries,” he said.
“Those West Bank owners have their own official ownership documents to prove beyond doubt their ownership of those lands,” he stressed.
Israel knows the owners of those lands and denies the living owners and their descendants any kind of entry permits to Israel and Jerusalem.
The colony of Har Homa, which lies on the Palestinian Jabal Abu Ghonaim, for example, was built on land belonging to the town of Beit Sahour and the Gilo colony was built on lands of Beit Jala.
Tafakji said that according to international law, both the West Bank and the occupied East Jerusalem are under the Israeli occupation and so the Israeli Custodian of Absentee Property law cannot be applied against West Banker owners who are under occupation.
Palestinian owners of properties in occupied East Jerusalem have logged complaints with Israeli courts, but the pessimistic owners believe that those courts are merely tools of the Israeli government and will do no good for them.
