Police evacuate residents of Kfar Shalem in south Tel Aviv
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/938179.html
By Meron Rapoport, Haaretz Correspondent and Haaretz Service
Tags: Kfar Shalem <http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/tags/index.jhtml?tag=Kfar+Shalem>, Amidar <http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/tags/index.jhtml?tag=Amidar>
Police on Tuesday morning began evacuating some 30 families from the southern Tel Aviv neighborhood of Kfar Shalem, after a long legal dispute over land slated for a housing project.
At 10 A.M., 14 out of roughly 25 structures had been evacuated in the disputed section of the neighborhood, between Mahal Street and Moshe Dayan Street. Five left-wing activists protesting the evacuation were arrested for causing a disturbance, according to the police.
Ramle's Bailiff's Office rejected on Thursday a last-ditch request to defer evacuating the occupants. The Israel Land Administration (ILA) sold the land on which the residents live to private-sector businessmen who demand the residents be evicted without awarding them compensation.
The eight-dunam area in question is home to some 70 residents. The families claim they have rights to the property and are entitled to compensation for vacating it, both in keeping with urban renewal regulations and on the grounds that some residents are protected tenants. The authorities maintain that the residents are squatters, even though some of the families have been paying rent for years to the government-operated housing company Amidar.
The evacuation was postponed in July after Housing Minister Ze'ev Boim intervened when it became clear that the eviction order was to be applied to ILA lands as well. The ILA then reached an agreement with representatives of the owner, Ruma Efrati, that the residents on ILA land would not be evicted.
Most Kfar Shalem families have lived in the neighborhood since 1949, when they came to Israel from Yemen. They were sent there by the Jewish Agency in order to prevent the area's Palestinian inhabitants from returning.