The eviction of 150 Orthodox Jews from a building in the heart of the Old City’s Christian Quarter was temporarily stayed Thursday, while intifada activists passed a death sentence against the man who allegedly leased it to them.
Supreme Court Justice Gavriel Bach issued the interim order restraining police from removing the settlers as they had been instructed to do earlier in the day by Attorney General Yosef Harish.
The order was requested by a Panamanian corporation that claims it took a 10-ycar lease on the building, known as St. John’s Hospice, and that the Jewish settlers are its guests.
But it was seen as no more than a technicality inasmuch as a three-judge panel of the High Court of Justice was scheduled to hear an appeal against the eviction Friday morning.
The building is owned by the Greek Orthodox Church, which requested and received the Jerusalem District Court’s order for eviction.
The alleged lessor was identified as an Armenian businessman, Mardiros Matossian, who the church says has no legal standing and is in fact himself a tenant.
The Unified Command of the Palestinian Uprising said Thursday that it had pronounced a death sentence on Matossian.
Armenian sources in East Jerusalem said he had already fled to Canada with the $3.5 million he received for the building.
The settlers, about 20 families and 60 yeshi-va students, occupied the premises on April 11.
The move, during the holy days preceding Easter, triggered angry protests by Christians around the world.
Church leaders in Jerusalem have since informed the government unofficially that they will shut down all holy places for a month to protest its failure to evict the settlers.
The Greek government has also demanded their eviction. But a spokesman for the new conservative regime in Athens said it would not affect its decision to establish full diplomatic tics with Israel.
In Washington, the State Department called Thursday for a speedy resolution of the situation.
“We believe that it would be in the best interest of reducing tension for this matter concluded as quickly as possible,” said department spokeswoman Margaret Tutwiler.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
