UN experts call for ending forced displacement, annexation of occupied Palestinian territory

By Peter Kenny

GENEVA (AA) - The international community must take immediate action to stop Israel's forced evictions and displacement of Palestinians in East Jerusalem as part of the annexation and “de-Palestinianisation” of the city, a group of UN experts said on Thursday.

"The world's attention has been focused on Israel's recklessness in Al-Aqsa, rockets fired from Gaza, Lebanon, and Syria, with deadly attacks against Israeli and international civilians making headlines," the experts said.

"All the while, tenfold Palestinian deaths were not making similar headlines."

They said there had been an ongoing "unchecked tragedy" – the forced eviction of Palestinians from their homes.

Despite efforts of international organizations and activists, Palestinians under Israeli occupation continue being forced out of their homes and dispossessed of their land and properties through discriminatory laws, said the experts.

They noted that Palestinians say such laws were designed to consolidate Jewish ownership in Jerusalem, irredeemably altering its demographic composition and status.

"Israel's transfer of its own population into the occupied territory confirms a deliberate intention to colonize the territory it occupies – a practice strictly prohibited by international humanitarian law," they said.

"It amounts to a prima facie war crime."

According to experts, an estimated 150 Palestinian families in the Old City of Jerusalem adjacent neighborhoods such as Silwan and Sheikh Jarrah are at risk of forced eviction and displacement by Israeli authorities and settler organizations.

- Properties taken over

Over the past decades, hundreds of Palestinian properties in occupied East Jerusalem have been taken over by settlers, partly due to a law that allowed Jews to claim real estate that they say was Jewish property before 1948.

The experts assert that the law “helps settler organizations expropriate Palestinian properties by manipulating the law.”

"This is lawfare in action," said the experts.

"The law is discriminatory and acquisitive by design, and no such right to restitution exists for the over 1 million Palestinians and their descendants who were displaced and dispossessed from Jerusalem, Israel, and the rest of the West Bank and Gaza as of 1947 and in 1967."

The experts expressed specific concern for three families in East Jerusalem: the Shehade family in Silwan, the Ghaith-Sub Laban family in the Old City, and the Salem family in Sheikh Jarrah.

"Despite living in their homes for many decades under a protected tenancy lease, these families have faced eviction lawsuits filed by settler organizations seeking to take over their properties for years," said the experts.