Jerusalem / Maisa Abu Ghazaleh for PNN – Israeli settlers attacked the Salah family in southeast Jerusalem’s Beit Safafa on Friday.

The attack was the latest in ongoing attempts to capture the neighborhoods and towns of Palestinian Jerusalem. Today, five people were injured.

In an interview with PNN Shiha Salah, an elderly woman who is bruised on her neck and head, described her day. “We were preparing ourselves to go to Friday prayers, getting into the car to drive to the mosque. Twelve settlers stopped us in front of the house. They attacked us with weapons and iron tools. We tried to defend ourselves against their attempt to seize our home.”

Sixty year old Ismail Salah was shot with a live bullet in the right hand, while 18 year old Daoud Salah was bruised in the head and his right foot injured. Forty-eight year old Mohammad Salah suffered bruises to his lower back after being hit with a metal ball.

Eighty-nine year old Shiha Salah explained that today’s attack was one in a long line that began in 1993 when Israeli settlers from Kiryat Arba in Hebron claimed they bought five houses from an Armenian owner. However, the Salah family bought the houses in 1966 and has the paperwork to prove it. Shiha Salah’s husband was the purchaser, but these types of cases often do not go the way of Palestinian owners who have little recourse other than the Israeli court system.

In this case the Israeli Supreme Court issued in August a decision to evict the Salah family from their homes in Beit Safafa in spite of the legal documents proving ownership. They were given a month to leave.

Five homes are threatened with evacuation for the benefit of settlers, yet all belong to Ibrahim Ali Salah and his sons, Ismail, Mohammed, Mahmoud and Ahmad. Fifty-five people live in these homes; 30 of them are under the age of 12 years.

Salah told PNN Friday, “This attack is added to the continuous attacks on us. They break into our houses, they burn the land where we keep the sheep and our workshops. They steal the sheep. And this happens while the Israeli administration imposes heavy fines on us.”

She stressed the need for her family to remain persistent in staying in their homes, and to not to allow themselves to be driven away.

The elderly woman added an appeal to the “free world” while she was talking to PNN today, asking for intervention to prevent the forcible eviction from their homes.