Tag it:

The al-Kurd family, who were evacuated from their home in East Jerusalem on 9 November erected a protest tent on their neighbor's land.

For the past week, the mother of the family, Fawzieh al-Kurd, and international activists have been living in a protest tent only meters away from their home, which has now been taken over by Jewish settlers. The father, Mohammed al-Kurd, who is partially paralyzed and suffers from diabetes and related health problems, is currently hospitalized.  

The protest tent and current home of the al-Kurd family is located on privately owned land, the owners of which gave permission to the al-Kurd family to be there. Israeli authorities, however, claim that the land owners had no permission to “construct” a tent, and have thus ordered that the al-Kurd family evacuate the tent. No deadline for evacuation has been issued.  

“Now we need permission for everything, even for a tent,” exclaimed one of the numerous Palestinians who visit the al-Kurd family each day in solidarity and protest of Israeli human rights violations in Jerusalem. International peace and solidarity activists are also visiting the protest tent daily.  

Prior to 16 November there were also two additional tents, next to the protest tent. “I saw the tents Saturday, but then when I came back on Sunday, they had been taken down by Israeli military and police,” said a British peace activist affiliated with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM). “The Israelis also took down a banner with the Palestinian flag on it,” he added.  “I am here to support the al-Kurd family. If anything happens, I’m here to see, to write about it and to tell people about what is going on here.” 

Currently, the al-Kurd family and the solidarity activists do not know if they will indeed be evacuated from the tent and when. As a Swedish peace activist staying with the al-Kurd family noted, “the only thing we can do is sit and wait to see what will happen.”