Palestinians Not to Cede Property Titles To Jewish Settlers

On Tuesday, four Palestinian families rejected the position adopted by the Israeli Supreme Court, which offered to postpone their expulsion of the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in Jerusalem if they ceded their properties' title to Jewish settlers.

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"We have the right to live on our land. We will not submit to an unjust settlement. If expelled, we will live in the streets with other brother families and continue to fight for our cause," the Palestinian families stressed.

The Israeli proposal would have made them "protected tenants" of the lands they lived in and would block any eviction or demolition orders for at least 15 years. However, it would have also forced them to pay rent to Jewish settlers, so the possible defense of their cases before courts would have weakened.

The families who protested argued that the Jordanian government gave them their lands for receiving refugee status after Jordan took control of the West Bank and East Jerusalem in 1948.

The Jewish settlers are take advantage of an Israeli law that allows them to take over property that was ceded to Palestinian refugees after the 1948 war.

Although many Palestinians lost property in the same conflict, this law does not provide the same right for them. Therefore, dozens of Palestinian families in Jerusalem are at risk of being evicted by Jewish settler organizations.

Israel has presented the matter as a private property dispute. However,  Palestinians and human rights defenders consider it a coordinated attempt to expel Palestinian residents from Jerusalem and change the city's identity.