Sheikh Jarrah's Salhiya family in East Jerusalem expelled

The Israeli police destroyed this January 19 before dawn the house of a Palestinian family in the sensitive neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, which has become the symbol of the struggle against Israeli colonization in East Jerusalem.

Menahem KAHANA AFP

Text by: RFI Follow

1 min

In Jerusalem, at dawn on Wednesday January 19, the Israeli police took everyone by surprise and evicted a Palestinian family from the ultra-sensitive district of Sheikh Jarrah.

The Salhiya family home was razed to the ground.

The Israeli security forces had already tried earlier this week to demolish the house.

But faced with the mobilization of anti-occupation activists and international diplomats, they had given up.

In the end, the reprieve was short-lived.

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With our correspondent in Jerusalem

Sami Boukhelifa

The Israeli police burst in in the middle of the night.

The Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, located in East Jerusalem, the Palestinian part of the city annexed by the Jewish state, was quickly cordoned off.

According to the Israeli police, during this night operation, 18 people were arrested.

Among them, members of the Salhiya family.

Deportation warrant since 2017

On Monday, during the first eviction attempt, Mahmoud Salhiya and his children took refuge on the roof of their house.

Armed with a gas cylinder and a can of gasoline, they threatened to blow everything up if they were forced to leave.

The Salhiya family had been under an eviction order since 2017. The land on which their house stood, now reduced to ruins, was allocated for the construction of a school.

A mere pretext

In Cheikh Jarrah, Palestinian and Israeli human rights activists explain that this establishment could be built elsewhere in town.

According to them, this is a simple pretext for a forced displacement of the Palestinian populations.

They call this act a “

war crime

”.

Last May, it was precisely attempts to evict Palestinians from this district, which notably contributed to triggering the conflict in Gaza.

► To read also: In East Jerusalem, mobilization against a new expulsion in Sheikh Jarrah

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  • Palestinian territories

  • Israel

  • Israelo-Palestinian conflict