In the series “From the Figures of Jerusalem,” Tel Aviv Tribune Net sheds light on the experience of the director of the Jerusalem Center for Social and Economic Rights, Ziad Al-Hamouri, who puts his finger on the city’s wounds and concerns.
Between the city of Hebron in the southern West Bank, Gaza, Doha, Damascus, Beirut, and until he settled in Jerusalem, Al-Hamouri paved his way in struggle and fighting in search of freedom.
He was born in Gaza to a father who arrived from Hebron, then left it in the early 1950s to Doha, where he was the principal of a school where one of the teachers was Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, and one of his classmates was the Father Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani.
Al-Hamouri studied law at the University of Damascus and the University of Lebanon, before returning to Jerusalem in the mid-seventies to work in trade. However, with the successive arrests, prosecutions, and confiscation of his store, he stopped trading and turned to confronting Israeli violations.
Al-Hamouri became aware early of the concerns of Jerusalem and its people, so he established a committee whose job was to confront the taxes imposed by the occupation on the people of Jerusalem. Then, in the early nineties of the last century, he and a number of his colleagues founded the Jerusalem Center for Social and Economic Rights.
The Jerusalem Center adopts the defense of Jerusalemites, demanding their rights, and confronting Israeli violations.
Al-Hamouri places his most difficult emphasis on the bleeding wound of Jerusalem and expresses deep concern about the fate of the people of Jerusalem in light of the absence of a clear strategy from any party to stabilize them, strengthen their steadfastness, and prevent plans to displace them.
He added that major plans are lurking for the people of Jerusalem in all directions, “as there are movements and plans to control the rest of Jerusalem and displace its residents, the people of Jerusalem.”
It calls for developing plans and strategies to defend the city’s Palestinians, including providing housing and classrooms.