This video returns to the testimony of Zuheir Rajabi, a community figure from Batn al-Hawa in Silwan, East Jerusalem, recorded in 2017 by the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem, amid mounting forcible expulsions of Palestinian families from their longtime family homes in this area.
In the video, Rajabi speaks shortly after receiving an expulsion notice for his own home. His response is not only legal or rhetorical, but it is also absolute: “I’ve said it before, and I will say it again. I’ll put it as simply as possible: I was born in this house, I’ll go on living in this house, I’ll die in this house, and I’ll leave it to my children, who will also stay in it as long as they live.”[1]
Nearly a decade later, the conditions described in this video have not faded; rather, they have intensified. Expulsion lawsuits, home seizures, and settler violence are expanding across East Jerusalem, from Silwan to Sheikh Jarrah, turning individual cases into a clear citywide pattern (see Israeli Settlers Are Seizing Home after Home in Silwanand Israeli Courts Order More than 50 Palestinians Expelled from Homes in Silwan and Sheikh Jarrah).
Watching this video today is not an act of looking back, but rather of recognizing continuity. The mechanisms of dispossession documented then remain active on a much wider scale now, shaping daily life for Palestinian families who continue to do everything in their power to resist removal from their homes.