Israeli Authorities Evict Palestinian Family from Jerusalem Home after Decades-Long Legal Battle 

Noura Sub-Laban (C) and her sons Rafat (L) and Ahmad (R) react following their eviction from their home in the Muslim Quarter in Jerusalem's old city to make way for Jewish settlers, on July 11, 2023. (AFP)
Noura Sub-Laban (C) and her sons Rafat (L) and Ahmad (R) react following their eviction from their home in the Muslim Quarter in Jerusalem's old city to make way for Jewish settlers, on July 11, 2023. (AFP)
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Israeli Authorities Evict Palestinian Family from Jerusalem Home after Decades-Long Legal Battle 

Noura Sub-Laban (C) and her sons Rafat (L) and Ahmad (R) react following their eviction from their home in the Muslim Quarter in Jerusalem's old city to make way for Jewish settlers, on July 11, 2023. (AFP)
Noura Sub-Laban (C) and her sons Rafat (L) and Ahmad (R) react following their eviction from their home in the Muslim Quarter in Jerusalem's old city to make way for Jewish settlers, on July 11, 2023. (AFP)

Israeli authorities on Tuesday evicted a Palestinian family from their contested apartment in Jerusalem's Old City, the family said, capping a decades-long legal battle that has come to symbolize conflicting claims to the holy city.

Activists say the Ghaith-Sub Laban family's eviction is part of a wider trend of Israeli settlers, backed by the government, encroaching on Palestinian neighborhoods and cementing Israeli control by seizing property in east Jerusalem. Israel describes it as a simple battle over real estate, with settlers claiming the family are squatters in an apartment formerly owned by Jews.

Earlier this year, Israel’s Supreme Court struck down the family’s final appeal, capping a 45-year-long legal battle over their right to live in the apartment.

Police officers came to Noura Ghaith-Sub Laban's house in Jerusalem's Old City early Tuesday morning, forced open the door and removed the family, said her son, Ahmad Sub-Laban. He said his family has been barred from reentering the premises.

“When we got back in front of the house, we faced the new reality that our main entrance had been closed and we don’t have the right to use it anymore,” he said. “They took the key and changed the lock.”

Free Jerusalem, an activist group that has tried to support the family, said that police arrested 12 people who demonstrated against the eviction Tuesday morning.

Jerusalem's Old City, home to holy sites to three monotheistic faiths, was captured by Israel along with the rest of east Jerusalem during the 1967 Mideast war, and later annexed in a move unrecognized by most of the international community.

Israel considers the entire city its capital, while the Palestinian seek east Jerusalem as capital of a future independent state.

Today, more than 220,000 Jews live in east Jerusalem, largely in built-up settlements that Israel considers neighborhoods of its capital. Most of east Jerusalem’s 350,000 Palestinian residents are crammed into overcrowded neighborhoods where there is little room to build.

Authorities have not let the family back into the house to recover their furniture or medicine for Noura and Rafat, Noura’s son, Rafat said. They were only able to grab one item as the authorities forced them out — a plant that has been in the family for 17 years.

“We decided to take it to remember that we lived here, our children grew up here, and that we are looking forward to returning to the house,” said Ahmad.

Ahmad and his siblings were evicted from the house in 2016. For now, Noura and her husband, Mustafa, will stay with their children in Shuafat, a town outside Jerusalem, until they can find a permanent place to stay, Rafat said.

Across the city’s eastern half, particularly in and around the Old City, settler organizations and Jewish trusts are pursuing court battles against Palestinian families to clear the way for settlers.

An Israeli law passed after the annexation of east Jerusalem allows Jews to reclaim properties that were Jewish before the formation of the Israeli state in 1948. Jordan controlled the area between 1948 and the 1967 war.

There is no equivalent right in Israel for hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who fled or were forced from their homes during the war surrounding Israel’s establishment in 1948 to return to lost properties.

During British rule over historic Palestine, before the war over Israel’s creation, the Ghaith-Sub Laban apartment was owned by a trust for Kollel Galicia, a group that collected funds in Eastern Europe for Jewish families in Jerusalem.

A similar dispute that could lead to evictions of Palestinian families in the nearby neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah stirred tensions that built up to a 2021 war between Israel and the Hamas movement in Gaza that killed over 250 people.

Nearly 1,000 Palestinians, including 424 children, currently face eviction in east Jerusalem, according to the United Nations humanitarian office.



Lebanon’s PM Visits Syrian President to Discuss Border Demarcation and Security

Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam meets with Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa in Damascus, Syria April 14, 2025. (Dalati & Nohra/Handout via Reuters)
Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam meets with Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa in Damascus, Syria April 14, 2025. (Dalati & Nohra/Handout via Reuters)
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Lebanon’s PM Visits Syrian President to Discuss Border Demarcation and Security

Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam meets with Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa in Damascus, Syria April 14, 2025. (Dalati & Nohra/Handout via Reuters)
Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam meets with Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa in Damascus, Syria April 14, 2025. (Dalati & Nohra/Handout via Reuters)

Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam led a high-level ministerial delegation to Syria on Monday for talks with Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, marking the most significant diplomatic visit between the two countries since the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s government in December.

"My visit to Damascus today aims to open a new page in the history of relations between the two countries, based on mutual respect, restoring trust, good neighborliness," Salam said in a statement on X.

At the center of discussions was implementing a March 28 agreement signed in Saudi Arabia by the Syrian and Lebanese defense ministers to demarcate land and sea borders and improve coordination on border security issues, Salam said in the statement.

The Lebanese-Syrian border witnessed deadly clashes earlier this year and years of unrest in the frontier regions, which have been plagued by weapons and illicit drug smuggling through illegal crossings.

During Monday’s meeting, Salam and Sharaa agreed to form a joint ministerial committee to oversee the implementation of the border agreement, close illegal crossings and suppress smuggling activity along the border.

The border area, especially near Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley and Syria’s Qusayr region, has long been a corridor for illicit trade, arms trafficking, and the movement of fighters — including Hezbollah fighters who backed the Assad government during Syria’s 14-year civil war.

Hezbollah has been significantly weakened in its recent war with Israel and since Assad's ousting, it lost several key smuggling routes it once relied on for weapons transfers.

Lebanon also pressed Syria to provide clarity on the fate of thousands of Lebanese nationals who were forcibly disappeared or imprisoned in Syrian jails in the 1980s and 1990s, during Syria’s nearly 30-year military presence in Lebanon. Human rights groups have long documented the lack of accountability and transparency regarding these cases, with families of the missing holding regular demonstrations in Beirut demanding answers.

Syrian officials for their part raised the issue of Syrian nationals detained in Lebanese prisons, Salam said. Many of the detainees were arrested for illegal entry or alleged involvement in militant activity. Rights advocates in both countries have criticized the lack of due process in many of these cases and the poor conditions inside detention facilities.

Lebanon pledged to hand over people implicated in crimes committed by the Assad government and security forces, many of whom are believed to have fled to Lebanon after the government’s collapse, if found on Lebanese soil, a ministerial source told The Associated Press.

The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to publicly comment.

In return, Lebanese officials requested the extradition of Syrians wanted in Lebanese courts for high-profile political assassinations, "most notably those involved in the bombing of the Al-Taqwa and Al-Salam mosques, those convicted of assassinating President Bashir Gemayel, and other crimes for which the Assad regime is accused," Salam said.

For decades, Lebanon witnessed a long series of politically motivated assassinations targeting journalists, politicians and security officials, particularly those opposed to Syrian influence. The 2013 twin bombings of the Al-Taqwa and Al-Salam mosques in Tripoli in northern Lebanon killed more than 40 people and intensified sectarian tensions already heightened by the spillover from the Syrian war.

Syria has never officially acknowledged involvement in any of Lebanon’s political assassinations.

Salam said he also pushed for renewed cooperation on the return of Syrian refugees.

Lebanese government officials estimate the country hosts about 1.5 million Syrian refugees, of whom about 755,000 are officially registered with the UN refugee agency, or UNHCR, making it the country with the highest number of refugees per capita in the world.

While Lebanese authorities have long urged the international community to support large-scale repatriation efforts, human rights organizations have cautioned against forced returns, citing ongoing security concerns and a lack of guarantees in Syria.

Since the fall of Assad in December, an estimated 400,000 refugees have returned to Syria from neighboring countries, according to UNHCR, with about half of them coming from Lebanon, but many are hesitant to return because of the dire economic situation and fears of continuing instability in Syria.