A court’s order preventing the “Nature and Parks Authority” from conducting any works in the lands of Wadi Al-Rababeh, Silwan
Ancestors land … We will not get out of it
On Sunday, the District Court issued a decision banning the "Nature and Parks Authority and Israeli National Parks" crews from entering and working in the land of Abbasi family in the neighborhood of Wadi Al-Rababeh in Silwan, south of Al-Aqsa Mosque.
The crews of the Nature and Parks Authority, accompanied by the occupation forces, have tried several times during the past days to work in the land to implement their settlement projects, but the people of Silwan confronted them every time despite being threatened and arrested, and the occupation authorities also uprooted the seedlings that were planted in the land by the locals of Silwan.
Lawyer Mohannad Jbara said in a statement that his office succeeded in obtaining a preventive order by the District Court in Jerusalem directed to the so-called "Israeli Nature and Parks Authority”, which prevents them from entering the lands of the Palestinian residents in Wadi Al-Rababeh area and uprooting trees or any other activities in the area until further notice.
Lawyer Jbara added that the so-called “Nature and Parks Authority” had adopted, in its decision to enter these lands, an illegal approval from the so-called Israeli “Guardian of Absentee Property” who claimed that these lands belong to Palestinian absentees, all without presenting any legal document that confirms his claims.
He added that crews of the “National and ParksAuthority” tried over the past days to enter the lands of the residents claiming that they "took a decision to control dozens of acres in a sensitive area in the Old City Basin in Jerusalem in the neighborhood of Wadi Al-Rababeh" to implement and establish national parks for Israelis, and thus confiscating these lands and seizing them and preventing Palestinian landowners from entering their own lands, claiming that it is a region of national parks belonging to the general public.
Abbasi family ... the land is the soul
Saeed Abbasi said that his family paid NIS 25,000 on Sunday to the court to stop the storming of the Nature and Parks Authority's crews on the land until a decision is made on the case.
He denied the claims of the "Nature and Parks Authority" that the land belongs to the guardian of absentee property, stressing that the land belongs to his family since decades.
He said: "This is the land of the fathers and grandparents, we will not leave it and we will continue to stand and defend it. The land is the soul, they claim that it belongs to the guardian of absentee property, and we say that my 90-year-old grandfather has been planting it for decades."
Abbasi pointed out that the Nature Authority crews stormed the land in the early morning hours on Sunday, to work in it, and clashes using hands broke out in the place and the forces arrested two young men; Sultan Abbasi and Bashir Abbasi.
