More Eviction Notices in Hevron

www.israelnationalnews.com ^ | 08/09/07, 10:11 AM | Ezra HaLevi

[Esther Ruth]

Published: 08/09/07, 10:11 AM

More Eviction Notices in Hevron

by Ezra HaLevi

(IsraelNN.com) On the heels of the forced eviction of two Jewish families from Hevron’s Shalhevet neighborhood – four more Hevron families living in the area have received eviction notices.

In response to a petition by Peace Now, Israel’s Civil Administration has issued expulsion orders against four Jewish-held storefronts in the “triangle” marketplace area of the city, located in close proximity to the area where two Jewish families were expelled by the IDF on Tuesday.

Like the wholesale market, the triangle marketplace was built by Hevron’s Arabs on top of the ruins of the city’s Jewish Quarter after the city's Arabs murdered nearly all Jewish residents during the 1929 pogroms.

“Two years ago, the IDF, guided by the military prosecutor and state prosecutor, drafted a defense plan for Hevron’s Jewish community, whose aim was to reduce to a minimum the number of closed Palestinian stores in the area of the Jewish community while minimizing the danger to the Jews’ security. The plan was approved by all the professional and political echelons and was presented to the Supreme Court. The stores that Peace Now is now seeking our eviction from, are part of the tiny number of stores that will never be opened – in which six Jewish families now live.”

The Jewish Community of Hevron has appealed the expulsion orders, and a hearing on the matter will be heard in two weeks. Until then, the order is on hold.

Rabbi Ordered to Vacate Hevron With Trailer Rabbi Danny Cohen, a Chabad-Lubavitch emissary to Hevron, received an eviction notice demanding he remove his mobile prayer structure from the city, WorldNetDaily reports.

Cohen teaches Torah and organizes prayer quorums for Hevron residents from his mobile trailer, which he parks in Hevron's Jewish neighborhood. He told Shturem.net, a Chabad news site, "We were compelled to buy this mobile unit because it is forbidden to erect new structures in Hevron and now they want us to move his too.

"In Hebron one can witness outright discrimination. While Arabs have been building as much as they want, Jews are forbidden to build even the smallest structure. This mobile unit is not a permanent building and still the authorities ordered the emissaries not to use it in the city," Cohen said.

Activists to Visit Hevron, Show Support A “Chizuk” (strengthening) trip to Hevron is planned for Friday, coordinated by the Women in Green movement.

“We must go to our brothers and sisters in Hevron, give them support and say to them: ‘We are with you,'” a Women in Green statement reads.

Activists plan to go to the city’s Avraham Avinu neighborhood with cakes for the adults and candies and toys for the children. Convoys of private vehicles will set out at 9 AM from the parking lot at the Gush Etzion Junction. For more information, call 050 577-7254.

[Esther Ruth]

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/891692.html

Last update - 12:51 09/08/2007

Evacuation orders issued to settlers in four more Hebron stores

By Nadav Shragai, Haaretz Correspondent

The Civil Administration has issued evacuation orders for four more Hebron stores where settlers squatted two years ago. The stores are located in the “triangle market,” not far from the wholesale market from where two Jewish families were evacuated by Israel Defense Forces on Tuesday.

The evacuation order, which was issued following a petition by Peace Now, will not take place immediately as the settlers have appealed to the Judea and Samaria Appeals Committee, and their case will be heard in two weeks.

The stores in question are on Jewish-owned land that was inhabited by Jews until 1929, when Arabs massacred many members of the local community and the survivors fled.

But the settlers argue that aside from being on Jewish-owned land, the stores are an integral part of the Jewish Avraham Avinu neighborhood: They share common walls with the houses on the edge of the neighborhood, and the neighborhood’s access road passes between them.

Between 1948 and 1967, when Jordan controlled Hebron, the stores were managed by the kingdom’s custodian of enemy property. After Israel captured the territories in 1967, it upheld the leases that Palestinian shopkeepers had signed with the Jordanian body and gave them the status of protected tenants.

In 1994, following both Baruch Goldstein’s massacre of Muslim worshipers at the Cave of the Patriarchs and a stabbing in the area, the IDF closed both the wholesale and triangle markets and forbade Palestinian merchants to enter. Some time later, after the squatters moved in, two of the merchants who had rented the stores asked Peace Now to approach the Civil Administration for an eviction order on their behalf.

The Civil Administration granted the order, ruling that the army’s closure of the market did not cancel the tenants’ rights to the stores, and that the Jewish squatters had no rights to the property. “This was a deliberate, planned and illegal act that challenged the rule of law in the city of Hebron,” it wrote in its submission to the appeals committee.

Orit Struk, one of the leaders of Hebron’s Jewish community, said the army prepared a defensive plan for the Hebron settlers “whose goal was to reduce to a minimum the number of [closed] Palestinian stores in the vicinity of the Jewish community,” and this plan was approved by the military prosecution, the state prosecution and “every professional and political echelon.”

Hagit Ofran of Peace Now retorted that the squatters were following the settlers’ well-known recipe for “taking over properties in Hebron. The authorities see everything and know what has been done, but choose to ignore it and do nothing until a complaint is filed. Only when we threatened to go to the High Court of Justice did the system begin to move, and I hope that in the end, the squatters will be evacuated, as happened in the wholesale market.”