While Obama Meeting Netanyahu, Illegal Israeli Settlement Units Announced in Palestinian East Jerusalem

Jerusalem Municipality approves settlement units in Sheikh Jarrah

Thursday March 25, 2010 01:30 by JCSER

Israeli occupation government municipality, in control of the Palestinian occupied city of Jerusalem, has given final approval to a group of settlers to construct 20 housing units in Shaikh Jarrah.

The announcement comes during the visit of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Washington to meet with President Barack Obama in Washington.

The construction site locates in Shepherd Hotel in the Shaikh Jarrah neighborhood.

Moskowitz, an influential supporter of the settlement organization Ateret Cohanim and heightened Israeli settlement in the Palestinian city of occupied Jerusalem, plans to tear down the hotel and build housing units for the illegal Jewish settlers in its place.

The local planning council initially approved the plan in July, a move which angered Britain and the United States and prompted them to call on Israel to cancel the plans.

The council issued its final approval for the project last Thursday, which now enables the settlers to begin their construction at once.

An existing structure in the area will be turned down to make room for the housing units, while the historic Shepherd Hotel will remain intact. A three-story parking structure and an access road will also be constructed on site.

Israeli Settler Government Orders Palestinian Hannoun Family to Pay Expenses of Eviction from their Home in Jerusalem

Rendered Homeless, Family Ordered To Pay Its Expulsion Expenses

Thursday March 25, 2010 02:44 by Saed Bannoura - IMEMC & Agencies

The Jerusalem Center for Social and Economical Rights (JCCER) reported that the Israeli occupation government police handed Wednesday a Palestinian family from East Jerusalem an order to pay 13.000 NIS, demanding family members to pay the expenses of their eviction from their home.

Members of Majed Hannoun family, from Shaikh Jarrah neighborhood, were forced out of their home last year and were replaced by fundamentalist Jewish settlers.

But now, the settler-run Jerusalem Municipality is asking the family to pay 13.000 NIS for the expenses of the workers who removed them from their homes, and for equipment the municipality used during the evacuation.

The Research and Documentation Unit at the JCCER reported that two other families who were also forced out of their homes in Sheikh Jarrah last year, fear the same measure would be taken against them.

The families of Maher Hannoun and Abdul-Fattah Al Ghawi were forced out of their homes and fundamentalist settlers threw their furniture and belongings in the street.

The Jerusalem municipality later moved the furniture to a square in front of the City Hall building in Shaikh Jarrah.

The two families are now living in tents and fear that Israel will also attempt to oblige them to pay the expenses of their evacuation.

The Jerusalem Municipality repeatedly removed the tents and tried to force the residents our of Shaikh Jarrah.

This issues comes amidst ongoing Israeli violations against the Palestinian natives of Jerusalem, and amidst ongoing settlement construction and expansion in the city and around it.

This is also part of Israel’s police to demolish Arab and Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem.