Friday prayers held at the Samrin family home threatened with confiscation

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, Dozens of local Silwan Palestinians held the Friday prayers today at the house of the Samrin family in the Wadi Hilwa to the south of the Aqsa Mosque. The Samrin family home is threatened with confiscation by settler organisations. The function was called for by the Committee to Defend Silwan Real Estate. The Samrin family received a notice to pay about 2 million shekels in fines and to leave their home by 28 November. Lawyer Ahmad Al-Ruwaidi, who participated in the prayers, said that the home of the Samrin family is one of a number of homes that settler organisations plan to arrogate and expel Palestinian residents of those homes for the purpose of establishing new settlement outposts, especially in the old city of Jerusalem and Wadi Hilwa in Silwan. He also said that settler organisations are working in full coordination and cooperation with the occupation government as the budget, the security plans were approved to facilitate the removal of Palestinian families from those homes and make them available to settlers. He said that holding the Friday prayers there is one of the activities approved by the meeting of Jerusalemite activists to prevent the eviction of the family from its home, in addition to following the matter in courts of law through the family lawyer. Ruwaidi added that the matter is not a legal one but a political one through which the occupation forces are trying to control all the area surrounding the old city, especially that which is adjacent to the Aqsa Mosque. The Samrin family home lies near the Maghareba gate where the occupation authority intends to build a bridge leading to the Aqsa Mosque as well as biblical parks and synagogues in what is called the Holy Basin project according to plans for 2020 which the occupation government is implementing in Jerusalem. For its part the Samrin family said that it will adhere to its right to live in its home and that eviction threats is part of the occupation attempts to empty Jerusalem of its indigenous Palestinian population. /129