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The dome of the al-Aqsa mosque gleamed in the late afternoon autumnal sun as Zohair Rajabi looked out from his balcony towards the skyline of Jerusalem’s Old City. Christian pilgrims spilled out of buses, while observant Jewish worshippers gathered outside the gate to the Western Wall.
New flags now fly a few metres from Rajabi’s home. Blue and white and bearing the Star of David, they mark where residents were evicted recently from their homes by Israeli police. After more than 20 years of activism, Rajabi knows his days in Batn al-Hawa, a predominantly Palestinian neighbourhood less than a mile south of the Old City, are almost certainly numbered.
“Yes I have lost. I have been defeated. I am not only waiting for my home to be taken but for every home here to be taken,” the 55-year-old said.
Rajabi has lived in Batn al-Hawa all his life. His home is a rambling four-storey house built on land bought by his grandfather in 1965. His brothers and mother live on different floors, with many children. Two of his relatives are severely disabled. All will have to move if Rajabi’s request to make a final legal appeal to Israeli courts is rejected, as all in Batn al-Hawa expect.
“We know what the decision will be … but we are going to fight anyway. I think within the month all 52 of us will have to find somewhere else to live,” he said.
Batn al-Hawa has long been the target of rightwing Israeli organisations working to consolidate Israeli control of parts of Jerusalem seized after the defeat of Jordan in the 1967 war.
One such organisation is Ateret Cohanim, which describes itself as “the leading urban land reclamation organisation in Jerusalem … working for over 40 years to restore Jewish life in the heart of ancient Jerusalem”.
The group argues that much of Batn al-Hawa lies on the site of a village constructed by a philanthropic trust under Ottoman rule in the late 19th century to house poor Yemeni Jews. The community was evacuated by British authorities when tensions rose between Arabs and Jews in Palestine in the 1930s and its inhabitants were told they would be able to return when calm was restored, but never did.
Lawyers acting for the trust, which was reactivated almost 20 years ago, have successfully argued in Israeli courts that its prior ownership of the properties in Batn al-Hawa should take precedence over any later purchases made by current inhabitants or their parents or grandparents. A 1970 law gives Jewish people the right to reclaim property in East Jerusalem.
Possession by the trust of some buildings has also been obtained through deals with their owners, though the circumstances of these remains controversial.
Daniel Luria, a spokesperson for Ateret Cohanim, said the organisation, which has placed almost 40 Jewish families in Batn al-Hawa, was independent of the trust but had ties with it.
In recent months, a sudden spate of evictions has followed a series of decisions by Israeli judges.
Ir Amim, a Jerusalem-based NGO active in Batn al-Hawa, said Rajabi and his family were among 34 families, numbering some 175 people, who face “imminent displacement and settler takeover of their homes.”
If carried out, this could lead to “the largest expulsion and coordinated state and settler takeover of a Palestinian neighbourhood in occupied East Jerusalem since 1967,” said Amy Cohen, a spokesperson for Ir Amim.
Luria compared the current resistance to eviction of residents in Batn al-Hawa, which he calls Shiloah, to “Custer’s last stand”.
“I sympathise but … they are illegal squatters in properties from which Jews were driven out in the 1930s,” he said.
Rajabi blames the recent spate of evictions on the war in Gaza. “The war is a big factor. If there was no war, maybe you would see only one eviction every 10 years instead of five in 15 months. The war has created an atmosphere where you can push this through …. An atmosphere of hate,” he said.
Israel’s ruling coalition, the most rightwing government in its history, includes extremist ministers deeply committed to the project of expanding Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem, which Israel has unilaterally annexed, as well as in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
About 40% of Jerusalem’s population of roughly 1 million is Palestinian. Maintaining a Jewish majority in the city has been an aim of successive Israeli governments.
In September, Bezalel Smotrich, Israel’s finance minister, said Israel should annex 82% of the occupied West Bank.
Luria said he supported Smotrich’s proposal “one thousand percent”. “When the Jews came back in 1948, it didn’t stop there, or in 1967 … the Zionist dream is not over,” he said.
Rajabi is unsure where he and his family will go if evicted. Three of his four children are teenagers and finding a home for them all will be difficult, he said, adding: “The government and the settlers want us out of Jerusalem.”
On the walls of Rajabi’s house is a painting of al-Aqsa mosque, the third holiest site in Islam and located on the Haram al-Sharif compound, which is known as the Temple Mount to Jews and is the most sacred currently accessible prayer site in Judaism.
Dahreen, Rajabi’s 15-year-old daughter, said the prospect of leaving her home saddened her: “Every stone here is a memory for me. I am very worried that we will be split up as a family and I will be away from my friends. But I’m taking my cat with me whatever happens.”
