In their large cage, against the back wall, the parakeets jump from perch to perch and chatter excitedly. In the center of the small cement patio, lemon trees offer their shade and their fruits. In Otayba Odeh, in the Silwan neighborhood of East Jerusalem, peace is threatened. As evidenced, one hundred meters from this shelter, a tangle of sections of masonry, twisted concrete bars, furniture and crushed objects. The dusty chaos is what remains of the Al-Bustan community center, named after this sub-neighborhood of Silwan, which Odeh was in charge of. The Israeli authorities, who manage this occupied and annexed part of the city, destroyed it on November 13, judging its construction “illegal”.
The Al-Bustan association was the only one of its kind in Silwan, a neighborhood devoid of public space for its approximately 30,000 Palestinian residents. This did not stop the demolition workers. Next to the mountain of rubble, Odeh has already resumed the activities of the outdoor center: exploration, taekwondo, traditional dance or psychological assistance. “We must not give in, not even for a moment must we give up”said.
Back home, he pretends to have fun telling: “We are a family of twenty-one people who live in three houses, in three different neighborhoods of Silwan. We are the subject of three proceedings – either destruction or expulsion – in three different courts. It absorbs all our money, all our time, all our energy, all our life. » His father pushes the door and heads towards his own house. Mr. Odeh informs you: “Tomorrow they will summon us to court again. » The old man nods. His son watches him leave with sadness: “He worked for forty-eight years as a bus driver and never had the slightest problem, the slightest incident. And there, at the end of his life, they want to throw him out on the street, taking away the only thing he owns: his house. »
Created in 2012, the community center was supported by the French government and twenty-one local authorities. Links had been established between the French cities and the inhabitants of Silwan, half a million euros had been disbursed over the years to support the structure in which a thousand young people from this Palestinian neighborhood came to have fun, practice various sports, meet among Yeah. The funding was valuable, though perhaps less so, than the support thus shown to the center and to residents threatened by orders to destroy their homes.
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