Home
Discover Islam
Quran Recitations
Lectures
Fatwa
Articles
Fiqh
E-Books
Women
Boys & Girls 
Ramadan
Fatwa Audios
Month of Mercy
Women
Eed Al- Fitr
Food Recipes
Videos
Police officers have evicted a Palestinian family from their east Jerusalem home of 52 years, after Israel's high court ruled in favor of Jewish settlers already occupying part of the building.
The al-Kurd family finally lost their protracted legal battle on July 16 this year, after judges backed the settlers' claim to the land and ruled that the family be removed from the property.
The family were evicted on Sunday, despite the fact the al-Kurds are still in the midst of appealing against the high court judgment.
Fawzia al-Kurd told news agency AFP: "They arrived at three thirty at the morning. They broke into the house by smashing the door and forcefully threw us out, inhumanely."
Foreign pro-Palestinian activists have been camping outside the house in recent weeks in protest of the court ruling. Seven were detained for questioning on Sunday, police sources said.
Symbol of resistance
The al-Kurd's fight to remain in their home has become symbolic of Palestinian resistance to the expansion of illegal Israeli settlements in occupied east Jerusalem overall.
The family were given the house back in 1956 by UNRWA - the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees - after they, like many others, fled Israel to east Jerusalem following the creation of the Israeli state in 1948.
Another 27 Palestinian families who evacuated to east Jerusalem in the 1940s, which was then under Jordanian control, were also allocated housing in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood by the UNRWA.
However, after Israeli forces captured and annexed east Jerusalem during the 1967 Six Day war, Israeli settlers registered their claim to the land. The al-Kurd's say that the 19th-century Ottoman document upon which the title deeds are based is a fake.
Mayoral elections
The move comes just two days before municipal elections. In Jerusalem, two leading candidates for mayor, Meir Porush and Nir Barkat, have both spoke out in favor of Jewish settlements in the east of the city.
Hatem Abdelkader, a spokesman for Salam Fayyad, the Palestinian prime minister, reacted angrily to the eviction.
"They want to expel Palestinian residents from Sheikh Jarrah. It is an escalation before the municipal elections," he said.
The eviction happened on the same day as the international quartet for the Middle East - the US, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations - met in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.
Leaders urged the Israelis to stop the construction of Jewish settlements on occupied Palestinian land.
PHOTO CAPTION
Israeli border police officers stand guard near the Al Kurd Family house in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in east Jerusalem Sunday, Nov. 9, 2008.
Al-Jazeera
Prayer Times
Prayer times for Doha, Qatar 
