Naela welcomed us again, begging our pardon for the mess. "As you can see, the room is like a sardine can. It is not big enough for more than two things at a time," she said with a laugh as she tried to conceal her embarrassment for the chaos and lack of space in the room. She immediately began making a place for us to sit.

The rectangular room is no more than 10 meters. Its only window is sealed and curtained to block the curious stares of those who pass by. An adjoining room is much the same in terms of space, but with two wooden beds in the middle of the room instead of chairs. "After the settlers took over my house, my neighborhood helped me to get these two rooms in the health center to shelter me and my children."

Pointing to the dim rooms she continues, "In the beginning, I thought my situation here was temporary and that I would regain my house. That is why I kept my clothes and all my furniture in boxes for a whole year, in the hopes that I would return to my home. But with time this hope has become a far off dream. I realize that the road before me is still long." She finished, studying my face for a reaction to her words.

Near the end of 1985, while Naela was accompanying her sick mother to Jordan for treatment, settlers broke into her home in the Old City. A Jewish family moved in, throwing her furniture and clothes onto the street. "My sister and some relatives who lived in the area filed a complaint with the police. They told her that the only possible solution to this problem was to resort to the judiciary. And that is how my experience with the courts began," said Naela with a mixture of irony and pain.

Our hostess sat up in her chair, casually puffing on her cigarette, emanating a false sense of calm. But from time to time her nervous hand movements and the rising and falling intonations in her voice gave her away as she finished her story. "I cut my trip to Jordan short, leaving my mother in the hospital. My furniture was still in the neighborhood and of course, we were not able to enter the house."

One main problem Naela faced when she decided to resort to the Israeli judiciary is how would she know the names of the perpetrators in the midst of this muffled silence. "One day I noticed a group of Arab workers carrying out renovations inside the house, so I asked them. First they refused to help. It seems they were told not to reveal anything. But when I threatened them, saying I would send them the neighborhood youth, they told me. So, I was able to complete the legal procedures to file a suit against the settlers."

The first stage in Naela's journey through the Israeli court system took seven consecutive years until it finally reached the Israeli Supreme Court near the end of 1992. Her case, which she won, was the first in which an Arab family won a ruling for the return of its confiscated home. "But our happiness did not last," Naela added. It took the police an entire year after the ruling to carry out the order. Naela hired a guarding company to evacuate the house by force.

But this was not the end of her story.

"Settlers then built a synagogue in the building next to the house. They took over two of the four houses in the building where Naela lives and built a passageway between the two buildings. "They wanted it to be a settlement where no Arab sets foot. So my presence was a hindrance and I was a thorn in their side. They had to get me out of their way".

Naela and her neighbors were subject to different forms of harassment and assault to force them to leave. "I lived in a state of continuous fear and terror, beginning in the early morning until the middle of the night and sometimes even later," says Naela, her voice rising. "My bedroom and the synagogue had a shared wall. When night fell, they would begin to scream and curse and play around with their weapons. What is worse, they would dance naked under my bedroom window when I turned on the light," she continued disgusted.

Even guests were not saved from the dirty water and rubbish the settlers would toss on their heads as they went up the stairs. "One time, the settlers pointed their guns at a group of German reporters who had come to interview me. They threatened to kill them along with the curses and insults they showered down on them."

The location of the house, in the Aqbat Al Saraya neighborhood in the Muslim Quarter overlooks a number of neighborhoods significant to Judaism including the Buraq Wall (known as the Western Wall), the Jewish Quarter and the Al Aqsa courtyard. This urged the settlers to take their case to court, this time armed with a vow from former Israeli Prime Minster Binyamin Netanyahu to get what they demanded. Their case was given more weight by the Israeli court system after a settler was stabbed to death in the Old City that same year.

The Israeli Supreme Court did not need more than a few months to rule in favor of the settlers, contrary to the seven years it took Naela. Just a few days after the ruling was issued and without any legal procedures or even a warning to the homeowners, a military force of over 100 soldiers surrounded the neighborhood and the house. Meanwhile, more than 20 soldiers carried out the eviction order.

"The sight of soldiers breaking into my house filled me with panic. I didn't even dare to scream. I was not allowed to call my lawyer. In less than three hours I found myself and my belongings out on the street; I had no shelter. So they wouldn't leave any trace of their crime, they put all my stuff in a police warehouse until I found the place where I am now living."

Now Naela lives in two rooms in a neighborhood health center. It is no more than 20 meters away from her confiscated house. She lives in the agony of expulsion. "Every time I look towards the house or I pass it, I feel like my heart is being yanked from my chest. I am displaced and threatened with expulsion from the health center at any moment, while people who have no right to live anywhere in this country are living in my house."

Four Palestinian families used to live in the confiscated building, which used to be Naela's home. Today, it is filled with Jewish settlers and one Palestinian woman named Hajja Rafiqa, 75, who was allowed to stay in one small room because of her age and failing health. But even her deteriorating health condition did not prevent the settlers from trying to evict her from the house by force.