After an eviction order for the benefit of settlers…the Khader family demolishes its home in Shu’fat
The Khader family chose to self-demolish its five houses so that they won’t be inhabited by the settlers' families, after the occupation courts ratified the ownership of the family's land to the "settlement societies", and issued a decision to evict the Khader family from it.
The eviction decision which was issued by the “Department of Procedure and Implementation” expired on Thursday. On the same day, the family emptied the contents of the houses, and carried out the demolition of the houses before they were forcibly evicted from the land.
The two brothers, Alaa and Ahmed Khader, while observing the demolition, said: "We go up with our heads held high, and not once do we accept that our settlers live in our homes. These are our homes, and they are very special to us, and their demolition was very difficult, but it is better to demolish them than having settlers live in them. We will remain in the land until the last breath, and we will try again to prove our right to it.”
The Khader family fought for years in the courts to establish their right to the land that their grandmother bought in the fifties of the last century, after they were displaced from the Al-Sharaf neighborhood in the Old City of Jerusalem. This year, the final decision was issued and granted ownership of the land for the settlers. The land has an area of about 800 square meters.
The case dates back to the year 2000, when the family added a building to the old apartment that had existed since the sixties, and the municipality at that time issued a demolition decision, and imposed financial violations “building without a license” on the family, and the family demolished part of the new building, then submitted “a request for a permit to build on its land.” The family was able to obtain the permit in 2014, only to be surprised afterwards of the settlement associations claimsthat they own the land, and their demands to evict it, so that the family began a new journey in the courts to prove ownership, until the matter ended with a decision of the Magistrate’s Court to vacate the land in favor of the settlers, and the District and Supreme Courts rejected the appeal and maintained the decision of the Magistrate's Court.
The suffering of the Khader family doubled during the session in which the eviction was confirmed, as their father, Hajj Abdul Muttalib, suffered a stroke that caused him to be paralyzed. He said during the demolition of houses despite his health: “This is our land and it is precious to us, and we will go back and build, our homes are our lives.”
