‘I will not stay quiet’: Israel evicts Palestinian family from home after 45-year legal battle

By JULIA FRANKEL
Associated Press

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli authorities have evicted a Palestinian family from a contested apartment in Jerusalem’s Old City after a decades-long legal battle. Activists say the Ghaith-Sub Laban family’s removal on Tuesday is part of a wider trend of Israeli settlers encroaching on Palestinian neighborhoods and cementing Israeli control by seizing property in east Jerusalem. Settlers claim the family members are squatters who had been living in an apartment formerly owned by Jews. Israel’s Supreme Court struck down the family’s final appeal earlier this year, capping a 45-year-long legal battle and clearing the way for the eviction. The family matriarch accused Israel of trying to “ethnically cleanse” the area of Palestinians and vowed to continue fighting.