Israeli police have evicted a Palestinian couple from a home in disputed east Jerusalem after an Israeli court ruled the family did not own the land on which the house sits.
Israeli police entered the home in east Jerusalem's Sheikh Jarrah district at dawn Sunday and removed Mohammed al-Kurd and his wife, Fawzieh. Fawzieh al-Kurd says the officers broke down her door and dragged her and her husband away.
The Palestinian couple had lived in the home for 52 years. The al-Kurds became refugees in 1948 during Israel's Independence War and were re-housed in the east Jerusalem building in 1956, when the area was under Jordanian control.
Israel captured east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war and annexed it in a move not recognized internationally.
Israel's Supreme Court ruled in July that the al-Kurds were living in the home illegally. The couple have now moved in with neighbors.
An aide to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Rafiq Husseini denounced the expulsion, saying it damages Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts.
Palestinians say Israeli authorities evicted the al-Kurds despite an appeal to Israel's Supreme Court to stop the move.
About 10 years ago, a Jewish property rights group bought a disputed title to the land on which the home was built. An Israeli family later moved into a section of the building.
In another development, fighting erupted in east Jerusalem's Church of the Holy Sepulcher Sunday between Greek Orthodox and Armenian Christians.
Monks from the rival sects kicked and punched each other after the Greeks objected to an Armenian ceremony in the shrine, revered as the site of Jesus' crucifixion, burial and resurrection.
Israel police entered the church to break up the brawl and arrested two clergymen.
Some information for this report was provided by AFP, AP and Reuters.
