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Monday February 17, 2014 22:10 by Chris Carlson - 1 of International Middle East Media Center Editorial Group

The Ayyad family, owners of the Cliff Hotel, located in Abu Dis, to the southeast of Jerusalem, managed on Sunday to stop the construction of a stretch in the segregation wall near the hotel which, if completed, would have rendered that property under Israeli control, according to Wadi Hilweh Information Center.

WAFA reports that the center said the Ayyad family had to go to court to stop the construction, after the army placed large cement blocks near the hotel, in order to build the section of wall left unfinished when the family contested the route in court.

The family says that Israel wants to build the wall around the hotel to incorporate it into the Jerusalem side and, eventually, take it over for settlement purposes.

Several attempts have been made by Israel to take over the hotel, claiming at one point that it was absentee property, as the owners live in the West Bank.

The family says the Israeli High Court has not yet ruled on the route and, therefore, the unfinished section cannot be completed before then.

The hotel is currently used as a border police base, since being confiscated by Israel over security claims.

The family is trying to regain control of the hotel, which suffered extensive damage after it was taken over by the border police.
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Published Sunday 16/02/2014 (updated) 16/02/2014 23:54

JERUSALEM (Ma’an) – Anticipating a negative decision by the Israeli Supreme Court, Israeli authorities on Sunday started to build a section of its separation wall around a hotel in East Jerusalem.

Locals told Ma’an that bulldozers escorted by large numbers of Israeli troops arrived in the morning and started to erect a wall made of huge T-shaped concrete blocks around the Cliff Hotel.

The hotel will be separated from the East Jerusalem Palestinian town of Abu Dis to be eventually confiscated under Israel’s law of absentee property.

The Cliff Hotel is a four-floor building 50 meters from the Palestinian parliament in Abu Dis.

Its original owners are members of the Ayad family, have been waging a legal battle to stop construction of the stretch of the separation wall around the hotel. All the owners hold Palestinian identity cards.

Since 1996, the Israeli authorities have been trying to confiscate the hotel and take control of it for several reasons, says lawyer Bassam Bahar who has been defending Palestinian lands in Abu Dis.

He highlighted that the Israelis claimed the hotel belonged to a Jewish family and would be annexed under absentee property law. Sometimes, they cite security pretexts to confiscate the hotel, he added.

The lawyer highlighted that the Israeli authorities started construction work around the Cliff Sunday morning because they anticipate the Supreme Court to rule against an alternative route. He added that the Israeli attorney general had decided that the hotel was not an absentee property.