AL-QUDS (Anadolu/Middle East Eye) –The U.S. is planning to build a diplomatic complex on private property confiscated from Palestinians in occupied East Al-Quds, a rights organization says.
In a statement, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Palestine (Adalah) said they have found new evidence that the land on which the diplomatic compound is to be built under a joint U.S.-Zionist plan is located on private property taken from Palestinians.
“The land on which the U.S. Diplomatic Compound is to be built is registered in the name of the Israel, but it was confiscated illegally from Palestinian refugees and internally displaced Palestinians using the 1950 Israeli Absentees’ Property Law,” it noted.
The law has been cited by rights groups, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, as a major tool utilized by Zionist authorities to subjugate Palestinians and enforce an apartheid system.
Recalling an upcoming visit by U.S. President Joe Biden to the occupied territories, Adalah said the descendants of the original owners of the property, including U.S. citizens and Palestinian residents of East Al-Quds, demand the “immediate cancellation of the plan.”
“If built, the U.S. embassy compound will be located on land that was seized from Palestinians in violation of international law,” the statement added.
Biden is scheduled to arrive in the occupied territories on July 13 as part of a tour that will also include the West Bank city of Ramallah and Saudi Arabia.
Detailed historical contract agreements show that the Habib, Qleibo, Khalidi, Razzaq and Khalili families were among the original landlords.
The families temporarily leased their properties to British Mandate authorities, who established the Allenby Barracks military base on the site.
The documents show that Mandate authorities paid the Palestinian owners 30 pounds per dunam each year for the land.
Following the Nakba (catastrophe) in 1948 - which left an estimated 15,000 Palestinians dead and some 750,000 displaced - the owners of the Allenby complex became refugees and their land was confiscated by the regime authorities.
Among the descendents of the original owners are Palestinians living in East Al-Quds and U.S. citizens, including renowned Palestinian-American historian and professor, Rashid Khalidi.
“The fact that the U.S. government is now participating actively with the Israeli regime in this project means that it is actively infringing on the property rights of the legitimate owners of these properties, including many U.S. citizens,” Khalidi said.