ICSPR calls for the adoption of a national strategy to address the Judaization of the city of Jerusalem.

Ref: 54 /2021

Date: 3 May 2021

Press release,

ICSPR calls for the adoption of a national strategy to address the Judaization of the city of Jerusalem.

The International Commission to Support Palestinians’ Rights “ICSPR” follows up the repeated Israeli terrorist attacks against the residents of occupied Jerusalem, which are represented by arbitrary arrests, excavations, and attempts to impose temporal and spatial division in Al-Aqsa Mosque, preventing the call to prayer and worshipers from reaching the Mosque, imposing taxes and preventing the conduct of elections in Jerusalem, and many other forms of violations that amount to war crimes. Perhaps the most dangerous of these, is the demolition of homes, facilities, and properties in Sheikh Jarrah and the confiscation of their lands, in preparation to displace them and settle the Jews in there.

ICSPR confirms that what the Israeli occupation authorities commit can’t be justified but a brutal assault on the Palestinian people, in order to achieve a political goal by overturning the demographic equation in favor of the Jews in the occupied city of Jerusalem to establish it as the unified capital of the Jewish state, after a judicial decision by the Central Court in occupied Jerusalem to expelle 4 Palestinian Jerusalemite families from their homes, namely (al-Kurd, al-Qasim, al-Jauni and al-Iskafi families), and imposed on each of them an amount of 70,000 shekels, which are the settlers ’attorney fees and other expenses, and allowing settlers to seize the land with the aim of strengthening the settlement outposts in the neighborhood within a vision represented by erasing the line between the two parts of Jerusalem, and enabling settlers to penetrate into the heart of the Palestinian neighborhoods, and since the court decision was based on the fact that the land on which the houses were built belonged to the Jews of the “Nahalat Shimon Settlement Company”, which they bought before the occupation of the eastern part of the Holy City in 1967. It is worth mentioning that an appeal has been filed with the Israeli Supreme Court, to prevent the evacuation of residents, the court decided in its session yesterday, Sunday, to urge the parties to reach an agreement and inform it of the outcome next Thursday.

ICSPR believes that there is an imminent threat of evacuation to about 30 Palestinian families in the neighborhood for the same reasons, in addition to hundreds of residents in the “Batn Al-Hawa” area in the town of Silwan, which is the southern garrison of Al-Aqsa Mosque, who face the same threat to evacuate their homes as well. Settlers claim that they have documents proving their ownership of these homes, at the same timeو the families fought a bitter struggle in the occupation courts, which refused to accept the title deeds submitted by the Jerusalemites to refute the settlers’ claims of their ownership of the land, as the occupation courts based their decisions biased in favor of the Israeli settlers on forged documents.

In the face of this escalating Israeli aggression and terrorism, ICSPR condemns the Zionist occupation’s decisions to evacuate the homes of Palestinians in the “Sheikh Jarrah” neighborhood of occupied Jerusalem, and the occupation municipality’s approval of the establishment of a site that includes a memorial for the Zionist soldiers in the heart of the neighborhood. Therefore:

• ICSPR calls for the formation of a national committee to confront the crimes of the Israeli occupation in the city of Jerusalem, where PLO is its reference, and to include the various sects of Palestinians in Palestinian territories and the diaspora, provided that it develops an action plan on the highest levels, including strengthening the steadfastness of our people in Jerusalem.
• ICSPR calls for activating the popular response and resistance through widespread demonstrations in all Palestinian territories, that hint at the possibility of a new intifada, which would help generate broad Arab and international reactions that could force the Israeli government itself to stop its Judaization policies of the holy city.
• ICSPR calls for activating the option of international mechanisms, including activating the relevant international resolutions and working to support a new draft resolution for the Security Council or the General Assembly, where a decision condemning the colonial settlement crimes can be obtained, as the settlement contravenes all legitimate decisions of International law and international humanitarian law, and work to pass a resolution to boycott “Israel” for not adhering to United Nations resolutions.
• ICSPR calls for international, Arab, political, diplomatic and legal moves to form a frontline against the crimes of the Israeli occupation, including inviting the League of Arab States and the Organization of the Islamic Conference for urgent and exceptional meetings to formulate unified positions against the plans and crimes of the occupation.
• ICSPR calls for coordination of positions with Russia, China, the European Union, Latin America, Arab, African and Islamic countries, to condemn the crimes of the occupation in Jerusalem, and to agree on practical steps to stop the grave violations against the citizens of Jerusalem and the holy sites.
• ICSPR calls for activating the role of Palestinians in the diaspora in the activities and movements against the crimes of the Israeli occupation in Jerusalem, including the expansion of the boycott campaign, and activating the role of solidarity movements and civil society organizations in the world, to ensure that pressure is exerted on their governments to carry out their moral and legal duties to stop the crimes of the occupation and settlers.
• ICSPR insists on holding elections in Jerusalem and maximizing the popular clash with the occupation in a way that enhances the opportunity to end the division, forming a national unity government, reunifying the institutions of the political system, activating the institutions of the Liberation Organization, and agreeing on a political plan to face the national challenges.

ICSPR