Palestinian family protests East Jerusalem home displacement

يارا هواري (@yarahawari) January 17, 2022Israeli Internal Security Minister Omer Bar-Lev said a court had ruled the case was one of illegal squatting.“You can’t hold the stick at both ends by both demanding that the municipality take action on welfare for Arab residents and oppose the building of educational establishments for their welfare,” Bar-Lev wrote on Twitter.However, Israeli human rights group Ir Amim – which follows developments in Jerusalem – said that in recent years the city gave up a different plot of land in Sheikh Jarrah originally designated for a Palestinian school and instead authorised construction of an ultra-Orthodox men’s seminary.“The municipality appears to perceive it as reasonable and fit to dispossess a Palestinian family for the sake of a school rather than utilisng open land initially allocated for such purposes,” it said.A tree-lined area of sandstone homes, foreign consulates and luxury hotels, Sheikh Jarrah has become an emblem of what Palestinians regard as an Israeli campaign to forcibly displace them from East Jerusalem.As Sheikh Jarrah residents and activists monitored the situation from nearby rooftops, the British Consulate in East Jerusalem, located opposite the home, tweeted that Consul-General Diane Corner had joined other diplomats to “bear witness to the ongoing eviction”.The consulate said that such evictions in occupied territory, in all but the most exceptional circumstances, were against international humanitarian law.