Save Sheikh Jarrah - write to the Foreign Office

Please write to the Foreign Office about the imminent eviction of Palestinian families in Sheikh Jarrah, East Jerusalem. Enter your postcode below to send a template email.

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Dear Minister, Please take action in support of the Jerusalemite families at imminent risk of forced eviction from their homes. This is part of Israel's ongoing plan to ethnically cleanse Palestinians from Jerusalem - and needs urgent international attention. Over the last few days tension has dramatically escalated, with Israeli police violence against Palestinians defending their homes from illegal settlers and protesting forced eviction. This is another example of the apartheid reality faced by Palestinians, and which is documented in Human Rights Watch's latest report <a href="https://www.hrw.org/report/2021/04/27/threshold-crossed/israeli-authorities-and-crimes-apartheid-and-persecution">'A Threshold Crossed: Israeli Authorities and the Crimes of Apartheid and Persecution'</a>. In 1948, the El-Kurd family - like thousands of other Palestinians - were dispossessed of their land by the newly formed state of Israel. Over 750,000 Palestinians became refugees during the initial Nakba (catastrophe), and continue to be denied their right to return to their homes. But that's not nearly the end of the story. Today we see the continuation of the Nakba, with Israel using illegal and quasi-legal means to ensure Jewish dominance over Palestinians. Forced evictions are part of the coercive environment created to further drive Palestinians out of Jerusalem. The El-Kurd family moved into the Sheikh Jarrah district of East Jersualem as part of a deal that was agreed for Palestinian refugees. In 1956, Jordan made an agreement with the UN to build houses in Sheikh Jarrah for 28 families - who would voluntarily give up their refugee status - and it was understood that the property titles would be transferred to those families after 3 years. Unfortunately, the latter part never happened. In 1967 Israel illegally annexed East Jerusalem, and Sheikh Jarrah has remained under occupation since then. Unlawfully applying Israeli domestic law to occupied territory, Israeli courts have ruled in favour of lawsuits undertaken by settler organisations to evict the Palestinian families who have now lived there for decades (and who should be property owners under the agreement made between the UN and Jordan). To cement Palestinian dispossession and displacement in East Jerusalem, Israel enacted the racist Legal and Administrative Matters Law in 1970, which - like the Absentees' Property Law - facilitates the transfer of property from Palestinians to Jews. Backed by the state, settler groups have claimed ownership of Sheikh Jarrah and implemented a creeping takeover of Palestinian homes - pursuing court cases to evict families who have lived there for generations. Outrageously, those Palestinian families are then ordered to pay money to the courts to cover the legal costs of the settler organisations. The Israeli District Court recently ordered four more families - including the El-Kurd family - to leave their homes or face eviction. I urge the UK to: 1. Recognise and to declare that the laws and policies Israel have created, and continue to maintain, as an institutionalised regime of racial domination and oppression over the Palestinian people as a whole, amounts to the crime of apartheid <a href="https://www.hrw.org/report/2021/04/27/threshold-crossed/israeli-authorities-and-crimes-apartheid-and-persecution">(as documented in Human Rights Watch's latest report </a><a href="https://www.hrw.org/report/2021/04/27/threshold-crossed/israeli-authorities-and-crimes-apartheid-and-persecution">'A Threshold Crossed Israeli Authorities and the Crimes of Apartheid and Persecution'</a>); 2. Call on Israel to cease the unlawful application of its domestic laws and policies to illegally annexed East Jerusalem; 3. Call on Israel to immediately cease the court proceedings against the Palestinian families who are under imminent threat of forced eviction, as well as the eviction orders placing the Jerusalemite people at risk of forced displacement, and to ensure the return of Palestinians evicted to their properties as restitution or compensating them for their loss where this is not possible; 4. Call on Israel to immediately repeal all laws it has enacted to further the Israeli policy of population transfer and achieve demographic goals in Jerusalem in violation of Palestinians’ fundamental rights, including their right to self-determination and right to return and reclaim their properties, including 1950 Absentees’ Property Law and the 1970 Legal and Administrative Matters Law; 5. Call on Israel to abide by the legal test set by the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights if the eviction is exceptionally required; 6. Call on the international community to cooperate to bring to an end, including through coercive measures such as sanctions, Israel’s occupation, colonisation, and apartheid regime, as well as the prolonged denial of the right to self-determination of the Palestinian people, and the right of return of Palestinian refugees to their homes, lands, and property, as mandated by international law; 7. Call on the international community to ensure international justice and accountability, including by supporting a full, thorough, and comprehensive investigation into the Situation in Palestine by the International Criminal Court; and 8. Call on the UN to ensure the fulfilment of various UN resolutions in relation to the inalienable right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and to restitution and compensation of their properties, as well as resolutions directed at altering the composition and character of Jerusalem.

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Save Sheikh Jarrah - write to the Foreign Office