This is what a home stolen by an Israeli settler organization looks like. The story of this house is mind-boggling. Here goes:

The Ghawi (& Hannoun—not pictured above) homes were initially stolen by a settler organization in 2002—during the 2nd Intifada, while the cities of Jenin & Nablus were getting massacred by the Israeli Occupation Forces.

The settlers, protected by Israeli forces, took over the Ghawi home before the Occupation Court even made a ruling.

In 2003, the settler group “sold the rights of the property” to another settler organization: Nahalat Shimon—a US-based company owned by an American.

(It’s worth mentioning that neither of orgs own land in Sheikh Jarrah, yet the courts refuse to challenge or authenticate their documents).

Nahalat Shimon proposed a project to build 250 settlement units atop Sheikh Jarrah’s homes’ rubble—of course, the colonial Israeli authorities approved it.

In 2006, the family’s lawyer recommended they go back into their houses, basing his advice on the baselessness of the settlers’ claims. And so the families returned. (There were no settlers living there at that point)

It wasn’t long until the settler organizations were back. The families were facing the threat of dispossession yet again (after having been made refugees in 1948 & 2002).

In 2008, the courts ruled to forcibly evict them, prompting a solidarity campaign that lasted a year.

In 2009, the Ghawis (& Hannouns) were thrown onto the streets. To their surprise many of the ‘solidarity activists’ there to protect them, belonged to an infamous Israeli intelligence unit called Musta’ribeen مستعربين (Israelis that pretend to be Palestinian & incite violence)

The Musta’ribeen assisted the Israeli forces & the armed settlers in carrying out the displacement. The families lived in a tent in front of their home for months.

This is Mariam Ghawi, who recalls this horror & absurdity of Zionism w/ visceral clarity. Though she now lives in another neighborhood, she’s almost always in Sheikh Jarrah.

Today the entirety of the neighborhood—if not Jerusalem at large—faces the same fate. #SaveSheikhJarrah

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