RAMALLAH, Saturday, June 24, 2023 (WAFA) – Alarmed by the imminent forcible transfer of the Sub Laban family from its house in the Old City of Jerusalem, which is slated to occur sometime between 28 June and 13 July 2023, the Palestinian NGOs Network (PNGO) and the Palestinian Human Rights Organizations Council (PHROC) vociferously asserted that such manifestation of the ongoing Palestinian Nakba is a result of the international community’s deliberate failure and unwillingness to take effective and meaningful measures to end Israel’s illegal occupation and its settler-colonial apartheid regime, describing it as an international crime.
Accordingly, PNGO and PHROC urgently demanded that Third States, in compliance with their erga omnes obligations, and responsibilities as State Parties to the Rome Statute, promptly intervene and halt the forced displacement of the Sub Laban family. “Third States must take meaningful and effective steps to ensure that Israel’s impunity for international crimes in the occupied Palestinian territory is brought to an end,” they said.
Recently, the Israeli Enforcement and Collection Authority served 68-year-old Nora Ghaith and her 72-year-old husband Mustafa Sub Laban a compulsory “eviction” notice, ordering them to vacate their home and remove their possessions by 11 June 2023. As such, the elderly couple is now confronted with the looming threat of forcible transfer, which constitutes both a war crime and a crime against humanity under the Rome Statute. The decision to forcibly transfer the Sub Laban family aims to facilitate the seizure and acquisition of their home in the Old City of Jerusalem by an Israeli settler organization, and a subsequent transfer of colonizing Israeli settlers.
The Sub Laban family has been residing in their home as tenants since 1953, renting the property from the Jordanian Custodian of Enemy Property. However, following the onset of the Israeli occupation in 1967, the Israeli General Custodian of Public Property assumed control over the property. In the late 1970s and 1980s, the family was temporarily displaced from their home but eventually allowed to return in 2000 after legal proceedings. In 2010, the property was privatized without notifying the family, and it was taken over by the Galetzia Trust, which has ties to settler organizations including Ateret Cohanim. The Galetzia Trust filed a court petition to forcibly “evict” the family, and in September 2014, the Magistrate Court presided over by a settler judge, granted the petition on the grounds that the family no longer held their protected tenant status. This decision was followed by two “eviction” attempts by settlers in early 2015.
Following an appeal, the Israeli High Court ruled in December 2016 that the parents of the Sub Laban family (Nora and Mustafa) could remain in the home as protected tenants for an additional 10 years. Nevertheless, their children and grandchildren, totaling six individuals, were required to vacate the premises immediately. On 27 January 2019, the Galetzia Trust initiated a new “eviction” case against the Sub Laban family, taking advantage of the 2016 High Court ruling that allowed them to initiate new proceedings two years after the initial ruling.
Recently, and by unlawfully applying Israeli domestic laws to an occupied territory – which are inherently discriminatory and serve as the foundational tool to establish and maintain Israel’s settler-colonial apartheid regime –, the Israeli Supreme Court ruled to terminate the family’s protected tenancy status, and forcibly transfer them from their home. Notably, the tenancy status as a private property right is specially protected and cannot be confiscated during a military occupation. Further, Israel, the Occupying Power is obliged to maintain the laws in force status quo ante bellum and is prohibited from interceding into the civil life of the occupied population, without grounds of absolute military necessity, or for the benefit of the protected occupied population.
Specifically, the “eviction” order is based on Israel’s discriminatory Administrative Matters Law, which was enacted in 1970 and exclusively allows Israeli Jews to pursue claims to land and property ownership allegedly owned by Jews in the eastern part of occupied and illegally-annexed Jerusalem before the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. Meanwhile, for the past 75 years, Palestinian refugees have been denied the right to return to their properties and homes that they were forcibly displaced from during the Nakba. In some cases, Palestinian refugees in Jerusalem have their original homes a few kilometers away in the western part of the city. Not only are they denied to return to their homes, but they face the threat of displacement for a second or even third time.
For over 45 years, the Sub Laban family has endured a lengthy, exhausting, and unaffordable legal struggle, actively resisting recurring lawsuits, harassment, and efforts by Israel and settler organizations to forcibly displace them and seize their home for the purpose of expanding settlements in the eastern part of occupied Jerusalem. As noted by the former Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian Territory occupied since 1967, Makarim Wibisono, the Sub Laban case is: “illustrative of the environment in which Palestinians in the occupied East Jerusalem live with pressure from powerful settler organizations, and the absence of proper legal protections for Palestinians.”
Indeed, Sub Laban’s case is not an isolated incident but rather emblematic of a larger widespread and systematic attack against the Palestinian civilian population. The Israeli occupying authorities – mobilizing its discriminatory judicial system – have consistently employed similar methods and policies to forcibly transfer dozens of Palestinian families from the Old City, Silwan, Sheikh Jarrah, and other neighborhoods of the eastern part of occupied Jerusalem. According to a 2019 report by the United Nations (UN) Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), approximately 199 Palestinian households are subject to “eviction” cases, placing 877 people, almost half of whom are children, at risk of displacement. In 2019, the former Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian Territory occupied since 1967, Michael Lynk, emphasized that the majority of these “eviction” claims “have been brought by settler organizations, [and] exist within the context of the unilateral annexation by Israel of occupied East Jerusalem. The Security Council, in its resolutions, affirms that all legislative and administrative measures taken by Israel to alter the character and status of Jerusalem are null and void.”
In light of the impending threat of the forcible transfer of Sub Laban family, PNGO and PHROC reiterated and emphasized the urgent need to move beyond mere verbal condemnations and take concrete and effective actions. In particular, they called on:
M.K.
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