Middle East Monitor / December 30, 2021
Israeli Occupation Forces stood by as settlers opened fire on Palestinian homes in the occupied East Al-Quds neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah.
According to a Wafa News Agency correspondent, the soldiers also detained a 13-year-old Palestinian boy from the flashpoint neighbourhood.
More than five hundred Palestinians living in twenty eight houses in the neighbourhood are facing threats of forced expulsion at the hands of settlement associations, backed by the Israeli government and its judiciary system, which recently issued a decision to displace seven families.
Jewish settler groups claim the homes were built on land owned by Jews before 1948, claims which official Jordanian and UN documents refute.
The United Nations Special Coordinator for the peace process in the Middle East, Tor Wennesland, last week, called on Israel “to cease the advancement of all settlement activities immediately,” describing the move as a “flagrant violation of UN resolutions.”
Referring to the evictions carried out against Palestinian families in the Sheikh Jarrah and Silwan neighbourhoods of occupied East Jerusalem, at a UN Security Council briefing, Wennesland called on the occupation authorities “to end the displacement and eviction of Palestinians, while enabling them to build legally and address their development need.”
The UN official also expressed his “continued concern” over the “deteriorating security situation in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem.”
Extremist Jewish settlers’ violence against Palestinians and their property is routine in the West Bank and is rarely prosecuted by the Israeli authorities.
They often coordinate their raids and assaults against the Palestinian with Israeli Occupation Forces, who provide them with cover and protection.
