Timeline for Jerusalem Families

Timeline for Salem Family

  • January 30, 2022: A new decision by the Enforcement and Collection Authority stipulates eviction can occur between March 1-April 1, 2022.

  • December 2021: Several settler activists on Jerusalem’s City Council, including one who claims ownership of a portion of the property, handed Hajja Fatima an eviction order.

  • 2012: Settlers opened a legal case to execute the 1988 court decision. In recent years, settler groups have claimed to have purchased at least parts of the Salem home from the original Jewish inhabitants. According to the family, the court refused to review the Salem family’s documents which show past Jewish residents leased but did not own the house.

  • 1988: Jewish families claiming to be heirs of the previous owners filed for an eviction order against Hajja Fatima after her father died. The Court authorized the eviction, however it was never enforced. Hajja Fatima has lived there ever since (she is nearly 70 years old).

  • 1970: Israeli Knesset passes a law allowing Jewish property owners who lost property in East Jerusalem in 1948 to reclaim property, but not so for Palestinian property owners.

  • 1967: Immediately upon occupying the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, the Government of Israel annexed some 70,000 dunams [1 dunam = 1,000 sq. meters] of West Bank land to the municipal boundaries of Jerusalem and applied Israeli law there, in breach of international law.

  • 1951: The Salem family rented their home in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah under a tenancy agreement with the Government of Jordan.

  • 1948: Days after the massacre of 103 villagers in Deir Yassin, a neutral village, Jewish paramilitary forces entered the village of Qalunya and blew up 50 houses. The Salem family are refugees from Qalunya village.

  • 1947: The UN General Assembly (UNGA) passed the resolution to partition Palestine, which provided that Jerusalem remain under international control as a corpus separatum. Fighting broke out in Jerusalem soon after. As noted by Nathan Krystall (1998) The De-Arabization of West Jerusalem 1947-50, Journal of Palestine Studies, 27:2, 5-22, DOI: 10.2307/2538281, “By December, Zionist forces decided to drive all Palestinians out of West Jerusalem. Concurrent with the Haganah's campaign to clear West Jerusalem of Arabs was the settling of their homes by Jews. By 28 January, twenty-five Jewish families, most of whom had been displaced from Shimon HaTzadik in East Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, had been moved into Shaykh Badr [near today’s Knesset]. By March, all the neighborhoods of Jerusalem-except for the Jewish Quarter in the otherwise Arab Old City-were exclusively Arab or Jewish.”

 

Timeline for Salhiyah Family

  • January 23, 2022: Both the Salhiyah and Ikirmawi families appealed to the Israeli Supreme Court seeking return of their land, & compensation.

  • January 19, 2022, 3am: Israeli authorities evicted the Salhiyah family and the Ikirmawi family, placed nine family members under arrest, and demolished both homes. Note: There was only an eviction order against Mr. and Mrs. Salhiyah not against Mrs. Ikirmawi and her family. No demolition orders were issued against either home. Just before demolition, the Mayor of Jerusalem tweeted an aerial view site plan of the proposed school, kindergartens and the adjoining constructions showing the Salhiyah/Irkimawi homes intact. Evidently, there was no plan for demolition.

  • January 17, 2022: while the family awaited their Jan 23rd court date, Israeli authorities demolished the family businesses — the plant nursery, the used car dealership, and the barbershop — on the Salhiya property.

  • July 3, 2017: Jerusalem municipality announces expropriation of the Salhiyah land for a public use building. The families appealed citing the Article 194 of the Organization Law, according to which it is prohibited to vacate a residential house until after giving alternative accommodation to the person who was living in the house in accordance with the law or justice at the time of publication of the announcement, or as an alternative if the resident prefers to do so - after compensation is paid to him that enables him to obtain reasonable alternative accommodation. Ownership was contested.

  • 1984: Israeli District Court designated the Salhiyah land (about 6340 square meters) for public use.

  • 1967: Notarized registration documents show the family’s ownership of the land.

  • 1949: The Husseini family leased their private land and a house to the Salhiyah family who made it their permanent home.

  • 1948: The Salhiyah family fled their village of Ein Karem along with thousands of civilians from there and the neighbouring villages following the massacre by Jewish paramilitary groups of 107 civilians including women and children in nearby Deir Yassin. They fled to the old city of Jerusalem.