Land Research Center

Monday 10th of June 2019 , the Israeli occupation supreme court responded to the Greek Patriarchy’s appeal regarding a courts resolution in transferring the property of Imperial and Petra hotels to the Israeli Pro colonialism NGO “Ateret Cohanim”, the institution claims that the property have been transferred to them 14 years ago.

 The deal is mainly the transfer of Hebron gate square property along with the buildings it contains, and they are:  Imperial hotel, which consists of three floors (50 rooms and number of halls), and Petra hotel which consists of 30 rooms, 2 halls and more than 30 commercial stores.

Imperial hotel / Jerusalem

Petra hotel / Jerusalem

The deal was brought to light in 2005 , during the period of Patriarch “Irenaeus” 14 years ago, at that time a deal was made between the church treasurer “Papademous” and “Aterat Cohanim”, the deal is to rent out the buildings to “Ateret Cohanim” for about 99 years. The church filed a complaint against the treasurer Papademous, who had left the country after the deal . It turned out in the latest court session, that the complaint was only about him stealing checks from the patriarch, and did not mention anything about selling properties to a colonial institution.

Few years later, Ateret cohanim ordered the Greeks to evict the church ,as they possess legal ownership documents. The Greek patriarch filed a complaint saying that Ateret Cohanim took over the properties by a fraud, and that they have an evidence.

Unfortunately, the church did not provide evidence. The Judge said: as a result to the Arabian Greek controversy inside the patriarchy, the church failed to provide enough evidence to win the case.

The current patriarch of the Orthodox church “Theophilos” , recently gave up on the property for a colonial institution, did not make any efforts to save the church’s properties.

Apparently, the Greek patriarchy is a partner in the deal, but tries to deceive Palestinian and pretend that they lost the properties unwillingly. However , Israeli authorities are working day and night to take over every inch of the Palestinian land, but that does not disclaim the church from the responsibility of giving up the property for a colonial institution.