Silwan

The postponement of an Israeli eviction order in East Jerusalem has spared the Somrein family from being made homeless — for the time being.

According to the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, 350 private Israeli security guards are currently employed in East Jerusalem by private security firm Modi’in Ezrahi, which is subcontracted by the Israeli Ministry of Housing and Construction, to protect 2,000 settlers living illegally in the occupied territory.

Despite living in his home for nearly fifty years, and despite the fact there are legal documents clearly stating that the land is owned by the Somrein family, Mohammed Somrein’s land has been declared absentee property and thus subject to confiscation.

Israel’s decision to deny seven-month-old Nouralden Issa Abbassi a Jerusalem identification card — and by extension block his right to access public health services and education — has left his family anxious and concerned for the future.

Defence for Children International - Palestine Section reports that Israeli police opened 1,267 criminal cases against Palestinian children between November 2009 and October 2010 for stone throwing in East Jerusalem. The Israeli human rights group B’Tselem reports 31 of those children were from Silwan.

Protests erupted in the occupied East Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan today after a guard at an Israeli settlement opened fire at Palestinian residents, killing at least one. Joseph Dana reports from the scene of the revolt.

While the world’s eyes are riveted to the diplomatic arguments over Israel’s settlement facts on the ground, Israel is covertly tightening its grip on Wadi Hilweh and al-Bustan neighborhoods in Silwan in a literally underground fashion. Danny Felsteiner writes from occupied East Jerusalem.

We are in the city of David, literally—the oldest part of Jerusalem, below the Temple Mount, not far from the Siloam Tunnel carved in the living rock, almost three millennia ago, by King Hezekiah. Today they call it Silwan: some 50,000 Palestinian Jerusalemites live here, nearly all with blue Jerusalem identity-cards. A few days ago the municipality stuck demolition notices on 88 houses in this neighborhood; some 1000 innocent people are about to lose everything. The ostensible rationale is the creation of an archaeological park in the heart of this Arab quarter.