The third displacement of the Basbous family… their building in Batn al-Hawa was seized, and the threat of displacement looms over 22 apartments
On Sunday night, the settlement organization Ateret Cohanim seized the Basbous family's building in the Batn al-Hawa neighborhood of Silwan, claiming the land belonged to Jews of Yemeni origin.
After midnight, settlers raided the building, changing locks, installing wires, and adding iron sheets to assert control over the property.
The families of Khalil Basbous and his son Bilal were forced to evacuate the building and remove their belongings after an Israeli Supreme Court ruling. The Enforcement and Execution Department gave them until the 5th of this month to comply with the eviction order; otherwise, the department's teams and Israeli forces would forcibly carry out the decision and charge the family for the eviction costs.
The occupation forces stormed the Basbous family's building on Sunday night, issued an immediate eviction notice, threatened a large-scale raid and forced eviction, and demanded that the family pay for the operation, forcing the family to leave their home, which had been theirs for many years.
The Basbous family building, consisting of two residential apartments, housed 13 individuals, including children, who spent their years within walls that no longer counted for them, even though their lives and dreams were written in them.
The Basbous building is located within a settlement plan led by the Ateret Cohanim organization, which aims to seize approximately 5200 square meters in the “Al-Hara Al-Wusta” of the Batn al-Hawa neighborhood. The organization has claimed ownership of the land by Jews of Yemeni origin since 1881. According to available data, the land is divided into six plots, and the organization claims that the Supreme Court has recognized the settlers' ownership.
The Basbous family received their first eviction notice about ten years ago and, like dozens of other families in Batn al-Hawa, has been engaged in a lengthy legal battle in various Israeli courts to protect their property and refute the claims of the settlement organizations.
Today, the family is experiencing its third forced displacement, following their expulsion in 1948 from the village of al-Dawayima, south of Hebron, and in 1967 from the Old City, culminating in their current displacement from the Silwan neighborhood.
Khalil Basbous said: "When I came to Silwan, I was five years old, and today I am 68. My whole life is in this house: past, present, and future, my sons and daughters, dreams and memories, and all the toil of my life. It's a false claim, and with the stroke of a pen, they transferred the land to the settlers. This is a settler state that doesn't want us here; the association is a settler organization, the judge is a settler, and the policeman is a settler."
The danger doesn't end with the Basbous building. Following its evacuation, serious eviction threats loom over other buildings in Batn al-Hawa, including:
• Yaqoub Rajabi building: comprising 11 apartments.
• Abdel Fattah Rajabi building: consisting of 4 apartments.
• Zuhair Rajabi and brothers building: consisting of 7 apartments.
More than 140 people live in these buildings, most of whom face eviction after the Supreme Court's final rulings rejected their appeals.
The Basbous family building was not the first to face eviction and displacement. In recent years, the Ateret Cohanim organization has seized properties belonging to the Shehadeh, Ghaith, Abu Nab, Odeh, Shweiki, and Rajabi families, citing the same pretext of Jewish ownership of the land. This has transformed the neighborhood into a site of gradual displacement for successive Jerusalemite families.
