Europe 1 traveled to the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in East Jerusalem, where a legal battle pits Palestinians threatened with expropriation against Jewish settlers.
It is this dispute that is at the origin of the violent clashes since the beginning of the week between Hamas and Israel.
REPORTAGE
A new cycle of violence has started between Israel and the Islamist movement of Hamas. The conflict has been brewing for decades, but the play of extremes worries the international community. Thousands of rockets were sent at Israel by Hamas, to which the Israeli army responded with relentless bombardments on the Gaza enclave. More than a hundred victims have been counted since Monday.
To understand this crisis, we have to go back to the spark that ignited everything: the planned eviction of several Palestinian families from their homes in Sheikh Jarrah, a neighborhood in East Jerusalem.
In recent weeks, clashes have erupted, notably on the Mosque Esplanade, between Palestinians who showed their support and the Israeli police.
On May 10, Hamas responded to the violence with a first round of rocket fire towards Israel.
A neighborhood where Palestinian and Jewish houses overlap
In 1956, the UN refugee agency established 28 Palestinian families in Sheikh Jarrah.
But Jordan, then sovereign in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, never provided them with formal deeds.
Since the 1970s, extremist movements of Israeli settlers have rushed into this breach.
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We will stay and live here. Against the settlers, against their will.
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Abel Fattah Skafi was six years old when his father moved into a house in Sheikh Jarrah. He is 71 today and he lives here with his children and grandchildren, as evidenced by the photos that cover his walls. The old man, now threatened with deportation, said he was both anxious and optimistic. "We will stay and live here, I hope, the children too. It is the most difficult thing: to imagine having to leave. The most difficult!", He confides to Europe 1. "But I did not have fear, deep down I feel that we are going to stay… Against them, against their will, ”wants to believe Abel Fattah Skafi.
"Them" are the settlers.
They are going to court to have Palestinian families evicted.
The first arrived in 2008. Today the houses of the district are completely nested.
Abel Fatah Skafi leads us through the narrow streets built on this hill.
The windows and doors of the settlers sometimes lead directly into Palestinian courtyards.
"There it is the Sabagh family, and right there, it is a family of settlers", enumerates our guide.
"We started to be harassed. They insult us, they throw trash in our house, they try to tire us. They launched the operation 'exhaust them!'", He assures us.
"Some of our children no longer want to go to school for fear of finding the house confiscated on return."
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"They have to understand that it is a Jewish state"
In the main street, the settlers installed a luminous Star of David on the roof of one of their houses.
Muslim neighbors responded with a green crescent.
For Eden Levy, a young settler who arrived three years ago, the Palestinians must pack their bags, period.
"Some can stay, but not all ... Let the others go back to Jordan, they come from there," he says.
"They have to understand that it is a Jewish state and therefore by complying with Jewish law, they can stay."
Palestinian families, approximately 70 people, have been offered to stay longer provided they recognize that the houses do not belong to them.
An unthinkable solution for these residents who appealed to the Israeli Supreme Court.
A legislative and political battle
For Jean-Paul Chagnollaud, professor of political science and president of the Mediterranean Middle East Research and Studies Institute, the district of Cheikh Jarrah, even if it ultimately concerns relatively few Palestinians, illustrates an emblematic conflict of the construction of Israel. We find there this desire to "Judaize the city", by waging a real demographic, territorial and legislative battle. "But there is an asymmetry in the law. It is Israeli law that applies to East Jerusalem, which was unilaterally annexed in 1980. So the law is that of the occupying power and the law says what you want. political leaders ", he points out to Europe 1.
In this case, the law allows Jews who can prove that members of their family already lived in East Jerusalem before the Arab-Israeli war of 1948-1949 - a small Jewish community having settled in this neighborhood in the 19th century. - to recover the properties concerned.
"This law is contrary to international law", according to Jean-Paul Chagnollaud.
From battle for land to armed conflict: "Hamas and Netanyahu are using each other"
This territorial conflict is superimposed on the political ambitions of each camp.
"Hamas has hijacked the problem to come back in force on the Palestinian political scene, completely emptied today," observes Jean-Paul Chagnollaud, since the elections scheduled for May 22 - the first in fifteen years - have been postponed until the end. April by President Mahmoud Abbas, citing security reasons.
"For his part, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was very marginalized, is regaining an important, somewhat central role, which reshuffles the cards within the Israeli political field. Finally, Hamas and Netanyahu are using each other. 'another in a tragedy from which many will suffer, "concludes Jean-Paul Chagnollaud.