05/05/2021
“My home is here, my land is here, and WE WILL NOT LEAVE.”
My name is Muna El-Kurd.
I was born and raised here. I have lived all my life here.
As I grew up, I was always in a state of fear of being evicted from my home, especially since the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood is one of the most neighborhoods in Jerusalem whose people are threatened with eviction and displacement.
I used to ask myself everyday where are we going to go?! My whole life is in Jerusalem.. I cannot imagine one day passing without wandering its streets.
What I feared all my life happened in 2009 as Israeli settlers took over half of my house under the pretext of building without a permit. Today, we are facing the Israeli court’s decision which will evict us from the second half of our home, along with 11 other families!
We were given 30 days to leave our homes, but our lawyer has filed an appeal with the district court.
The Israeli occupation’s court justified its ruling in favor of Israeli settlers organizations under the pretext of the statute of limitations law, saying that more than 30 years have passed since settlers claimed and registered this land. (A land already owned by its original people!)
Thus, all Israeli courts refused to discuss ownership of the land or to examine the validity of the registration presented by settler organizations.
The story of the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood began in 1956, after the Jordanian government represented by the Ministry of Construction and Development and the Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) signed an agreement to provide housing for 28 forcibly displaced and refugee families from different areas of historic Palestine, in exchange that these families cancel their relief cards (refugee aid cards).
One of the most important terms of this agreement was that land ownership would be registered for these families after 3 years of completion of houses construction, but the 1967 war stopped the process of registration.
As usual, Israeli settler organizations took advantage of the situation and forged papers claiming to be the owners of the land, and began to file cases against residents of the neighborhood since 1972 to this day.
Now (this Thursday) the Israeli occupation wants to force us out. My home is here, my land is here, and we will not leave!
