A Jerusalem court ruled today that 40 Jews, members of eight families evacuated from old Jerusalem’s Jewish quarter in 1948. had to give up homes in new Jerusalem belonging to an Israel Arab which they had claimed as refugees. The 40 were evicted.
The ruling covered an additional 50 Jewish families in other buildings belonging to the Arab who in 1950 won a suit against an Israel custodian of his property. The Israel Supreme Court ruled then that he was an Israeli temporarily absent but still the rightful owner of the seven buildings in the Katamon quarter of new Jerusalem.
The tenants, considering themselves refugees, refused to pay rent to the custodian and also refused to enter into contracts. The owner then sought and obtained the dispossession order in a test case involving one of his buildings.
Last minute efforts by police to obtain a stay in the dispossession order until substitute accommodation were found were unsuccessful and the tenants were forcibly ejected. Two moved in with relatives but others rejected temporary shelter in a hotel and chose to sleep outdoors.
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