OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — Israeli forces
were in a standoff Monday with a
Palestinian man who carried a gas canister
onto the roof of his home in a Jerusalem flashpoint district as his family
faced eviction.
اضافة اعلان
Israeli media reported that Mohammed Salhiya
had threatened to set himself on fire if the eviction order from Sheikh Jarrah
area of Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem was carried out.
Salhiya's family has been facing an eviction
threat since 2017, when the land where his home sits was allocated for school
construction.
Israeli forces and the Jerusalem
municipality said in a joint statement delegates went to the home early Monday
to carry out an eviction order after the Salhiyas ignored "countless
opportunities" to vacate the land as ordered.
"We've been in this home since the
1950s," said Salhiya family member Abdallah Ikermawi from the roof of the
home.
"We don't have anywhere to go," he
said in quotes provided by the
Sheikh Jarrah Committee organization, adding
that the family was made up of 15 people, including children.
An 11-day
Gaza war between Israel and the
Palestinians erupted last year, fuelled by anger in Sheikh Jarrah where
families battled eviction orders.
Israeli forces said their
"negotiators" were at the Salhiya home after several residents of the
house "began to fortify themselves with a gas canister and other flammable
material".
Witnesses told AFP that clashes between
security forces and locals erupted after the Israeli forces arrived but later
eased.
Hundreds of Palestinians are facing
evictions from their homes in Sheikh Jarrah and other east Jerusalem neighborhoods.
Circumstances surrounding the evictions
threats vary.
'Plenty of space'
In some cases, Jewish Israelis have mounted
legal challenges to claim the land they say was illegally taken during the war
that coincided with Israel's founding in 1948.
Palestinians have rejected these claims,
saying their homes were legally purchased from Jordanian authorities who
controlled east Jerusalem between 1948 and 1967.
Seven Palestinian families in Sheikh Jarrah
have taken their legal challenges against their eviction threats to Israel's
Supreme Court. The Salhiyas are not in that group.
Jerusalem City councilor Laura Wharton, who
was at the scene and due to meet the Salhiya family later Monday, criticized
the municipality's actions.
"They could have built the schools in
the same plot without moving the families. There is plenty of space," she
said.
"The sad thing is this is the
municipality itself doing this, it's not some right wing settlers."
Israel captured east Jerusalem in the 1967
War and later annexed it, in a move not recognized by the international
community.
More than 200,000 Jewish settlers have since
moved into the area, fuelling tensions with Palestinians, who claim east
Jerusalem as the capital of their future state.
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