JERUSALEM: In Silwan in East Jerusalem, south of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, Kayed Rajabi and his neighbors have been handed eviction orders in favor of an Israeli settler organization which has already taken over parts of the Palestinian district.
Rajabi’s home is surrounded by buildings that have raised large Israeli flags — a sign they are owned by settlers, who he said began buying homes in 2004, and have obtained about 40 buildings in Silwan now, many via forced evictions.
Settler group Ateret Cohanim had offered to buy him and other Palestinians out, he said, but most had refused.
He said he was among 32 families in the neighborhood who have now been ordered to leave, with him and his brothers given until the end of Ramadan — mid-March — to depart under an order from Israel’s Supreme Court that he showed Reuters.
“They want to force me out of the house I was born in, where my eyes first opened to life,” said Rajabi, explaining that his family had lived there since 1967 and bought the land from a Jordanian officer.
