Israeli settlers Tuesday seized the family house of Sub Laban in the Old City in Jerusalem after breaking into it under the protection of Israeli forces and forcibly evacuating it from its residents and detaining the activists supporting the family.

Ahmad Sub Laban, a resident in the house, said that the only thing the family took from the house is a tree as old as his 17-year-old son, noting it’s the only thing they demanded to take as a memory from the house until they return to it.

The deadline set by the Israeli occupation authorities to evacuate the Sub Laban family from their home expired last Sunday,

Several years ago, Israeli settlers seized an upper part of the building and another part of it, while the house of the Sub Laban family remained in the middle of the building, which was surrounded by settlements on all sides.

The family rented the house in 1953 from the Kingdom of Jordan, and was granted protected lease rights, but after the occupation of Jerusalem, it was placed under the management of the so-called Custodian of Absentee Properties, claiming that its ownership belonged to the Jews, which was categorically denied by the family.

In 2016, the Israeli occupation courts prevented members of the Jerusalemite Sub Laban family, Raafat, Ahmed, his wife and children, and their sister, from living inside the house, which led to the dispersal of the family.

Source: Palestine News & Information Agency