Two families, in total 53 people, have been evicted from their apartments in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem/Al Quds. They have set up a tent outside their home and some of the older men sleep there every night to show that they are determined to stay. I came, along with a Turkish girl volunteering at the International Solidarity Movement, to hear their story, and to be present if the new occupants of their home or Israeli police tried to harass them.
If you ever visit this country, you will quickly become familiar with a type of sensation that feels something like paralysis. Never did I feel this more than my night in Sheikh Jarrah. I could hardly speak to the evicted tenants under the tent that was now there home. What was I supposed to do? There was nothing that I could do here. "This is now our kitchen," an older man pointed to a plastic table with a kettle and some plates on it under the tent. "Would you like some Arabic coffee?" Three teenage Jewish boys walked by smirking at us. A Palestinian man shouted at them. In the seized apartment, I saw a man attaching a camera to the wall. I looked over at the guy sitting next to me, staring intently, with strong energetic eyes at this man putting a camera outside the home. As if he was trying to monitor strangers in his neighborhood. I took the man up on the Arabic coffee and he started to tell me the story of his family's eviction.
In 1948, after the creation of Israel, the Hanoun and Ghawe families were made refugees. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) gave them these homes from which the Israeli government has now evicted them. Since 1972, Jewish settlers have been waging a legal battle to take ownership of these properties, ultimately succeeding two weeks ago. They forged legal documents which allegedly proved that this land in Sheikh Jarrah was owned by Jewish residents during the Ottoman period. The families fought hard to continuously appeal the settlers claims to their land until they finally received an eviction notice this past February. On August 2, after six months of refusing to leave,heavily armed Israeli police broke into the Hanoun and Ghawe homes, shattered windows, and threw the residents out onto the street. Within one hour, the new tenants had arrived and occupied the homes.
What should I have said to all this? "I'm sorry"? I tried uttering this and then I immediately felt ignorant. Ignorant for thinking that somehow these words could make things better. Because they don't. The last thing these people need is my useless pity. The Turkish girl with me was similarly speechless. She took out a pack of cigarettes, offered me one. I smoked three. I've never smoked in my life. When I was inhaling, I just wanted to cry. I missed my family so much. I couldn't cry though. What was the point of crying when, after all, I have a home to go back to?
It was cold that night. I was wearing a sweater over my long sleeve, and I had wrapped myself good in a blanket. I was sitting in a chair until early in the morning. The police came by two times throughout the night with their blue sirens flashing. Both times they just looked out at us and then left. Around 3am, the Turkish girl had to go to the bathroom. One of the sons took us to the hotel room where his mother and younger brothers and sisters were staying so that we could use the bathroom. A small room for a mother and four children who until two weeks ago were sleeping inside their home.
This is how these people are literally made strangers in their own neighborhoods, to their homes and farms.
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