Mohammad Abdallah Abu Nab, about 24, a resident of Silwan in Jerusalem, was released yesterday, Wednesday, from Ketziot Prison after completing a four-year prison sentence for security offenses, mainly harassment of Jewish residents in the Batan al-Hawa neighborhood and attacks on security forces operating in the area. As a child, Abu Nab experienced the eviction of his family from the home where they had lived in the neighborhood.
Abu Nab was arrested in 2022 and indicted, along with others, in the Jerusalem District Court on a series of security offenses, including manufacturing Molotov cocktails and throwing them at the homes of Jewish residents in the Batan al-Hawa neighborhood in Silwan and at security forces guarding the area. He was also accused of taking part in numerous disturbances in which fireworks launchers were used as weapons, fired directly at police officers and Border Police fighters. The acts were carried out as part of his membership in a local cell that operated consistently against the Jewish presence in the neighborhood.
What is behind the legal dispute over the Benvenisti Trust lands in Silwan?
Mohammad Abu Nab belongs to the Abu Nab family, which lived in houses that were part of the “Yemenite neighborhood” in Silwan, where ownership has been the subject of legal battles for more than 20 years. The land in the Batan al-Hawa area was purchased at the end of the 19th century (1881) for Jews of Yemenite origin and became known as the “Benvenisti Trust.” After the 1948 war, the area came under the control of the Kingdom of Jordan, which allowed Palestinians to build homes on the trust lands and live there. Following the Six-Day War, renewed Jewish interest in the site emerged. In 2001, trustees associated with the Ateret Cohanim organization were appointed by the Rabbinical Court to manage the trust.
Later, the Israeli Custodian General released the lands to the trustees of the trust, enabling the organization to file eviction claims against Palestinian residents who had been living there for decades, including the family of Abdallah Abu Nab, Mohammad’s father, who was still a child at the time.
After a prolonged legal struggle, the court recognized the trust’s ownership of the building where the Abdallah Abu Nab family had lived. The structure had previously served as the synagogue of the “Yemenite neighborhood.” In October 2015, police evacuated the 11 members of the Abu Nab family from the property, and members of Ateret Cohanim entered the building and reestablished a synagogue there.
Against this background, Mohammad Abu Nab carried out the security offenses. In 2024, while he was serving the sentence imposed on him, additional housing units held by the family at the rear of the original property were evacuated. This completed the evacuation of the Abu Nab family from the lands of the Benvenisti Trust, although legal proceedings are still ongoing regarding the eviction of about 80 additional families in the compound.
