Amid the Israeli authorities’ repeated makes an attempt to evict the residents of the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in East Jerusalem to allow them to demolish their properties and construct settlement items, Jerusalemite households within the neighborhood have been taking turns guarding their properties across the clock, for worry of assaults by extremist settlers and the Israeli military.
However regardless of the locals’ efforts, Israeli police managed to evict Palestinian families from a disputed property within the neighborhood Jan. 19.
Sheikh Jarrah, the place tensions between Palestinians and Israeli peaked final yr, made the headlines once more in current weeks, after the residents of the neighborhood unanimously rejected on Nov. 2, 2021, a compromise deal proposed by the Israeli Supreme Court docket, to think about the residents of the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood to be “protected tenants” on the settlement affiliation “Nahalat Shimon.” The residents thought-about the deal to be the gradual confiscation of the properties and lands of the neighborhood.
On Oct. 4, 2021, the Israeli Supreme Court docket provided households within the neighborhood a proposal to stay as tenants for 15 years, throughout which the Palestinian households who reside of their properties can pay the lease to the Nahalat Shimon affiliation, which claims possession of the land on which the neighborhood’s homes are constructed.
In 1956, 28 Palestinian households who had been displaced from their occupied lands in 1948 had been relocated to the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, in response to an settlement between the United Nations Aid and Works Company for Palestine Refugees within the Close to East (UNRWA) and the Jordanian authorities. The realm of Sheikh Jarrah is estimated at 808 dunams (200 acres), and its inhabitants is estimated at roughly 2,800 individuals. Its administration and accountability relaxation with the Israeli municipality in Jerusalem.
Mahmoud Salhiya, a resident of the neighborhood whose home is threatened with confiscation, advised Al-Monitor, “Since my household was expelled from the village of Ein Kerem in 1948, now we have been residing in worry within the Karam al-Mufti space of Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood as a consequence of Israeli threats and incursions. My sons and I take turns guarding our dwelling, the place 17 individuals reside, for worry of an assault or a sudden incursion by the military or settlers.”
He mentioned, “I make it possible for my youngsters don’t go away the home after dusk, and they’re escorted to and from college since settlers might assault them at any second; they typically throw stones and shout curse phrases at us whereas strolling within the streets.”
Salhiya famous, “Since our household and the opposite residents rejected the Israeli courtroom’s choices, giant forces of the Israeli military stormed the home to evict us and demolish it, in addition to to raze a industrial facility and a plot of land that I additionally personal, beneath the pretext of constructing a Jewish college.”
He mentioned that for 23 years, he has been waging a battle within the Israeli courts to forestall the Israeli municipality of Jerusalem from confiscating and demolishing his home, however to no avail.
He identified that he and his sons needed to barricade themselves on the roof of his home to forestall the Israeli forces from evacuating it. He carried a number of metallic cylinders stuffed with cooking gasoline and a gallon of gasoline, and threatened to burn himself and blow up the home in the event that they expelled him and his household, shouting that they may solely take the home “over his lifeless physique.”
Salhiya added, “The Israeli forces tried to steer us to get off the roof, however I refused till they left. The military bulldozers then razed the industrial facility and the plot of land, and gave us till Jan. 25 to vacate the home.”
Just a few hours after Salhiya spoke to Al-Monitor, giant forces of the Israeli military stormed his home at daybreak on Jan. 19, severely beating all these inside, completely demolishing it, leaving 13 members of the family exterior beneath the rain and arresting six family members and a number of other activists on the scene.
Salhiya’s home, land and industrial facility are positioned a couple of ft from the Shepherd Resort, which was demolished by Israeli military bulldozers on Jan. 9, 2011, to determine 20 settlement units. The left-wing Israeli Peace Now motion revealed on the time that these works are a part of a settlement plan that features evacuating Palestinian households from the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood and pushing for the institution of a settlement on the ruins of Arab properties within the space. Peace Now identified that these plans would isolate the neighborhood by establishing a settlement cordon round it, and separating the Outdated Metropolis of Jerusalem from its environment.
For years, Fatima Salem, 70, has been guarding her home within the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, for worry of settlers’ assaults. She advised Al-Monitor, “In December, a gaggle of settlers laid barbed wire round my land, adjoining to my home, claiming that it belongs to them.”
She acquired a choice from the Israeli Supreme Court docket on Dec. 29 to vacate her 200-square-meter (2,153 sq. ft) home the place 11 individuals reside.
Salem insists on staying in her dwelling and refuses to depart beneath any circumstances in mild of the escalating assaults by the military and settlers, explaining that this may solely improve her power and steadfastness to face all these harassment and assaults.
In the meantime, Nasser al-Hadmi, head of the Jerusalem Committee for Resisting Displacement, advised Al-Monitor, “The Israeli military and the Jerusalem municipality [insisted] on demolishing the Salhiya household’s home, given its strategic geographic location a couple of meters from the [Jerusalem] mufti’s house, a big a part of which was demolished to construct a settlement neighborhood. The home can be positioned close to the Karam al-Mufti area, which the municipality plans to show right into a public park to serve the settlement neighborhood, thus enabling settlers to maneuver freely and simply inside Sheikh Jarrah.”
He mentioned, “The Israeli authorities declare that they may construct a faculty on the ruins of the destroyed home, along with establishing a parking lot for settlers on the plot of land adjoining to the Salhiya household’s dwelling.”
Hadmi famous that the Israeli municipality of Jerusalem needs to train its authority within the space by seizing all Arab neighborhoods within the metropolis, particularly after the US recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. It additionally plans to alter town’s options and switch it right into a Jewish metropolis, though worldwide regulation nonetheless considers town to be occupied.
He added, “Israel needs geographical integration within the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, particularly from the Karam al-Mufti space to the settlement outpost within the neighborhood, in order that this might be an entry level for the Israeli authorities to judaize the Wadi al-Joz neighborhood, which is the one industrial area in Jerusalem. Wadi al-Joz is at the moment witnessing a serious marketing campaign to regulate it and switch it right into a hi-tech zone.”
Hadmi concluded, “The Israeli authorities are drastically all for judaizing the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, which separates East and West Jerusalem, so it may be a geographical extension to enter the japanese a part of town and attain full management over it.”
