Security tightened after violence in East Jerusalem's Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood
Israeli security forces in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in East Jerusalem on February 14, 2022. REUTERS - AMMAR AWAD
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Jerusalem City Hall has ordered increased security measures around the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in the eastern part of the city.
The Israeli Prime Minister is attacking the far-right deputy Itamar Ben Gvir who has set up his office in the neighborhood and whom he describes as a provocateur.
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With our correspondent in Jerusalem,
Michel Paul
Exchanges of insults.
This is commonplace in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem.
Several houses are occupied by settlers.
The town hall wants to evacuate several buildings
.
In the past, they were owned by Jews, she claims.
Last May, the tension in the neighborhood caused a real uprising.
And the
“Guardian of the Walls” operation
.
Mahmoud Sau has always lived in the neighborhood.
“
I was born here, in this house,
he testifies.
They want to take it too.
They said to me: "Leave, you have 40 days."
Since then we have gone to court several times.
And I won the case.
»
Provocation
Last Friday, a settler house in the neighborhood was set on fire.
On Sunday, far-right Israeli lawmaker Itamar Ben Gvir set up his outdoor office at the site to protest, leading to renewed violence.
In the aftermath,
violent clashes pitted Palestinians against Israeli settlers
, then against the Israeli police, injuring around thirty people.
Karim regrets this situation.
“
It's bigger than me and the people of the neighborhood.
It's politics,
he laments.
It's Ben Gvir and the settlers.
On the back of the two peoples, the Palestinians and also the Israelis.
»
More than 300,000 Palestinians and 210,000 Israeli settlers live today in East Jerusalem, the Palestinian part occupied by Israel since 1967 and then annexed.
The Palestinians aspire to make East Jerusalem the capital of a future state, while Israel considers the entire city of Jerusalem as its capital.
The Palestinian Authority condemned Ben Gvir's visit, calling it "a
provocation threatening to inflame the situation which may become difficult to control
".
Same reaction from Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett: Ben Gvir is a provocateur who risks setting the entire region ablaze.
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