Occupied Jerusalem: Israeli police on Tuesday evicted a Palestinian family from the East Jerusalem home in which they lived for over half a century.
Plans for the eviction had been criticised by the European Union, United Nations and various Western governments, though not the United States.
Municipality officials backed by security guards enforced a court order Tuesday to remove the six-member Shamasneh family from a home claimed by heirs of a Jewish family forced to abandon it in 1948 when it came under Jordanian control.
Fahamiya Shamasneh, 75, told AFP police arrived unannounced before dawn and forced her out of the house along with her husband Ayoub, 84, their son and his family.
The couple had lived in the house in the Shaikh Jarrah neighbourhood of East Jerusalem near the historic Old City for 53 years.
An AFP journalist saw young Jewish men moving into the building after the family were escorted out.
“It is the hardest day,” Fahamiya Shamasneh said tearfully on the street after being evicted.
She said she was heating milk for her grandchildren when “they knocked on the door and said ‘open it’s the police’.
“They took us out and threw us outside."
“What greater injustice is there than this? Maybe we will sleep in the street.”
The United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said it would seek to support the family financially to find another home. Israel took control of the area after the 1967 war and continued existing renting arrangements with Arab tenants. But a law allowing Jews to reclaim former homes or repurchase them have set up such conflicts.
Ayoub Shamasneh, 79, said his case was still pending. “How can they do this to us?” he said.
Palestinians claim the evictions aim to alter East Jerusalem’s demography. Israel says it is merely enforcing the law.
