JERUSALEM, Monday, May 15, 2023 (WAFA) - The United Nations Human Rights Office in the Occupied Palestinian Territories said that it was is deeply concerned by the imminent forced eviction of the Ghaith-Sub Laban family in the Old City of East Jerusalem scheduled for 11 June. Despite repeated efforts to protect their family home, the Israeli High Court had previously ruled that the protected tenancy of the elderly couple, Nora Ghaith, 68, and Mustafa Sub Laban, 72, would be terminated making way for the property to be seized by Galicia Trust, a settler organization that has been engaged in a legal battle since 2010 to evict the Sub Laban family.
“The forced eviction of the Sub Laban family is part of ongoing evictions of Palestinian families from their homes in East Jerusalem, primarily based on discriminatory laws and practices, which violate the human rights of Palestinians, resulting in forced evictions, the loss of property and sources of livelihood. Forced evictions are a key factor in creating a coercive environment that may lead to forcible transfer, which is prohibited under international humanitarian law and may amount to a war crime,” said the UN Human Rights Office.
It called on Israel “to immediately halt all forced evictions, including that of the Ghaith-Sub Laban family and to cease any activity that would further contribute to a coercive environment and lead to a risk of forcible transfer.”
On Thursday, 11 May, an Israeli enforcement office delivered a notice of forced eviction to Nora Ghaith and her husband, Mustafa Sub Laban, and set the date for their forced displacement to Sunday, 11 June. The elderly couple will be forcibly evicted and their home in the Aqbat al-Khalidiya neighborhood in the Old City of occupied East Jerusalem will be taken over by a settler association.
The Ghaith-Sub Laban family home has been leased from Jordan since 1953 and is subject to a protected lease. After more than 45 years of repeated lawsuits and harassment against the family by the occupation authorities first, and since 2010 by the Galicia settler association, which claims that the family home is a Jewish endowment, the Israeli courts decided to end the family's protected lease and evict them from the home. The courts had previously evicted the rest of the family in 2016 and prevented the children from living with their parents, which led to the separation of the family.
The family's failure to abide by the eviction decision and voluntarily leave their home before the mentioned date, which the family rejects, means that the Israeli settlers, with the support of the government and the occupation forces, will forcibly evict the elderly couple on that date, who will be forced to pay the high cost of evicting them and their property from their home.
M.K.
