The Israeli Supreme Court decided on Tuesday (1st) to suspend the eviction of four Palestinian families living in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in east Jerusalem.
The decision recognizes the families as “protected tenants” and defines a symbolic rent of 2,400 shekels (about R$ 3,800), which will be reverted to a fund later reverted to whoever wins the dispute over land ownership – this action has no deadline. to finish and it could still take years, according to experts.
Four months ago, the same families rejected a similar settlement proposed by the court. By this text, they would remain in Sheikh Jarrah, but would acknowledge that they did not own the lots and would have to pay rent to Jewish settler associations.
One of the Palestinians’ arguments for not accepting this earlier agreement was that the evictions were part of a broader Israeli strategy to expel the Arab population from eastern Jerusalem.
Other families were expelled from the region in previous years, and some are still facing eviction proceedings in Sheikh Jarrah that did not have the same deliberation by the country’s highest court.
The dispute over the ownership of lots in the neighborhood has been going on for decades and dates back to the changes of control of East Jerusalem, captured from Jordan by Israel in 1967 – the annexation was condemned and harshly criticized by the UN (United Nations).
Before that, the conflict that followed the creation of the State of Israel in 1948 had given Jordan control of the territory. In the mid-1950s, the Jordanian government built houses for Palestinian refugees who had left the territory that became Israel at that time.
The imbroglio is whether Israeli law allows Jews to claim the right to own land in East Jerusalem if they can prove that their family lived there before the 1948 war. That right is not granted to Palestinians.
In May of last year, protests by thousands of Israeli Arabs and Palestinians against Israel’s eviction actions escalated and left hundreds injured in clashes with police forces.
In some regions of the country, the government declared a state of emergency to contain the uprisings, which spilled over to other cities, the West Bank (where clashes left at least 11 dead) and the Gaza Strip.
From Gaza, Hamas, which controls the region and is considered a terrorist group by Israel, fired rockets into Israeli territory. The actions were retaliated by Tel Aviv, and for 11 days, bombings followed in both directions.
The conflict ended with a ceasefire and more than 240 deaths – the vast majority Palestinians –, including 130 civilians.
Israel’s attacks left more than 1,900 injured, destroyed roads, buildings and other structures, which exacerbated shortages of food, drinking water and medicine, increased the risk of the spread of Covid-19 at a time when the pandemic was still on the rise. and forced more than 90,000 Palestinians from their homes.
