Tag Archives: Silwan

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YOU CAN’T GET THERE FROM HERE: THE NEED FOR “COLLAPSE WITH AGENCY” IN PALESTINE

Jeff Halper

Jeff Halper

Even as I write this, the bulldozers have been busy throughout that one indivisible country known by the bifurcated term Israel/Palestine. Palestinian homes, community centers, livestock pens and other “structures” (as the Israel authorities dispassionately call them) have been demolished in the Old City, Silwan and various parts of “Area C” in the West Bank, as well among the Bedouin – Israeli citizens – in the Negev/Nakab. This is merely mopping up, herding the last of the Arabs into their prison cells where, forever, they will cease to be heard or heard from, a non-issue in Israel and, eventually, in the wider world distracted from bigger, more pressing matters.

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Palestinian child hit by Israeli police car in Silwan

Israeli police car ran over a young Palestinian girl ((SILWANIC, 9 Feb 2011)
Israeli police car ran over a young Palestinian girl ((SILWANIC, 9 Feb 2011)

Israeli police car ran over a young Palestinian girl ((SILWANIC, 9 Feb 2011)

Silwan, Jerusalem (SILWANIC) — An Israeli police car ran over a young Palestinian girl on the main street of Ain al-Luza neighborhood in Silwan yesterday, 9 February. Witnesses reported that the police vehicle had been speeding through the streets of Silwan when it ran in to 15 year old Hanin Khalil Ghanayem on her way home from school, pushing her for a distance of approximately 3 metres and then colliding with a Palestinian car.
The incident, which is unfortunately not the first of its kind in Silwan, was well-documented by locals with cameras. Ghanayem was rushed to Hadassah Hospital in Ein Karem.

For continued updates please visit http://silwanic.net/?p=11743

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Silwan’s Captive Children

Showaib Qutayobeh, 15, on his 45th day of house arrest.

Editor Palestine Monitor, 11 February 2011

Seventeen children currently live under house arrest in the besieged neighborhood of Silwan in Jerusalem. Combined with a fierce campaign from Jewish extremists and armed Israeli forces, these young men are routinely arrested, beaten and interrogated.

Showaib Qutayobeh, 15, on his 45th day of house arrest.

Showaib Qutayobeh, 15, on his 45th day of house arrest.

“They have been subject to a severe system of Israeli police and security forces,” said Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi, Secretary General of The Palestinian National Initiative. “They cannot go to school. They cannot finish or continue their education. The Israelis keep them in their homes.”

With Al Aqsa’s dome behind him, 18-year old Mahmoud Razem stands on his porch, permitted under terms of his, for now, seven-month long house arrest.

With Al Aqsa’s dome behind him, 18-year old Mahmoud Razem stands on his porch, permitted under terms of his, for now, seven-month long house arrest.

As part of a comprehensive program of state-sponsored terror, these children are targeted because they live in a neighborhood coveted by Jewish extremists who believe it to be the Biblical City of David – not the home of nearly 45,000 people. Silwan’s people have survived paramilitary actions, policy discrimination, and repeated Israeli army incursions.

“The Israelis want to break down the resistance, they want to take over the area, they want to Judaize it,” Barghouthi said after visiting some of these children under house arrest.

Fifteen-year old Sharif Rajabi holding a document giving him permission to leave his home to attend school - an essential and common item for Silwan’s youth.

Fifteen-year old Sharif Rajabi holding a document giving him permission to leave his home to attend school - an essential and common item for Silwan’s youth.

Father of seven boys, Ziyyad Rajabi standing on his roof in front of an apartment seized by settlers in Silwan.

Father of seven boys, Ziyyad Rajabi standing on his roof in front of an apartment seized by settlers in Silwan.

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Help Silwan Resident Adnan Gheith Stay in Jerusalem

Adnan Gheith at the Silwan Protest Tent Earlier This Year. Picture Credit: Wadi Hilweh Information Center

Popular Struggle Coordination Committee, 23 Dec 2010

I know the Occupation in and out – I lived under it my entire life, but even I cannot imagine being in Adnan Gheith’s position. I don’t want to believe that something like this is possible, and I want to do all I can to stop what israel is trying to do to him.

Adnan Gheith at the Silwan Protest Tent Earlier This Year. Picture Credit: Wadi Hilweh Information Center

Adnan Gheith at the Silwan Protest Tent Earlier This Year. Picture Credit: Wadi Hilweh Information Center

On November 28th, Adnan, a Silwan grassroots organizer, received written notification that Israel intends to issue an order expelling him for a four months period from his city – Jerusalem. Adnan is a resident of Silwan, and a member of the al-Bustan Neighborhood’s committee, which was formed to oppose plans for massive house demolitions. In a reality where Palestinians’ right for freedom of expression in not even lip service, organizing your community against its impending destruction is reason enough to be ripped from it.

The order against Adnan is not part of a legal process where suspicions, charges or evidence have any part. It is an administrative order that circumvents the rule of law, which forms the foundation of western democracy. In this harsh reality, a person’s rights are taken without due process, with no charges, based on secret evidence and with no possibility to truly defend oneself. It is the essence of a Kafkaesque legal procedure in the taunting maze of the Occupation’s bureaucracy and power.

But it is not too late to act up and make a difference. Adnan’s expulsion from his city and family and life, can  be prevented.

Adnan’s story is the story of thousands of residents of East Jerusalem. In view of the brutal tactics of repression employed by police against the community in service of the settlers who have taken over the city, it is clear that Adnan Gheith’s expulsion constitutes an experimental exercise of power on part of the Israeli Police. The Shin Bet and the Israeli Army intended to prepare the ground for massive home demolitions in the al-Bustan neighborhood and for a deepening Jewish settlement in Silwan.

Please lend your voice to Adnan and the people of Silwan in their fight for their homes, their community and their dignity.

In an attempt to stop democratic and legitimate protest, Israel makes distorted and cynical use of the law. Despite months of repeated arrests, in which Adnan was led handcuffed to interrogation over and over again – and with judge after judge ordering his release from custody – not a shred of evidence was gathered against him. The State has now decided to no longer bother with the criminal procedure where evidence is required, but rather to circumvent it by using the security apparatus and emergency regulations.

The Israeli government is now turning to unconstitutional and undemocratic means in the face of Palestinian and international pressure to end settlement in East Jerusalem. Adnan’s expulsion from his city will not only exact an unbearable cost on him and his family, but also on the residents of Silwan.

Please use the template in the following links to ask your government to speak up against Adnan’s expulsion from the only home he has and against the demolitions in Silwan.

USA |   UK |  France |  Denmark |  Germany |  Spain |  Turkey

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Security Disparities In East Jerusalem Make Conflict Inevitable

Israeli police and security guards looking down on the Al-Bustan neighbourhood of Silwan (East Jerusalem). Photo: Jillian Kestler - D’Amours

Palestine Monitor, 2 October 2010

“What’s happening in Silwan is not just these past two weeks, it’s been happening for months,” Zakaria Odeh, the Director of the Civic Coalition for Defending Palestinian Rights in Jerusalem, told me when I visited him in his office in East Jerusalem.

Israeli police and security guards looking down on the Al-Bustan neighbourhood of Silwan (East Jerusalem). Photo: Jillian Kestler - D’Amours

Israeli police and security guards looking down on the Al-Bustan neighbourhood of Silwan (East Jerusalem). Photo: Jillian Kestler - D’Amours

Last Wednesday, 22 September, Samer Sarhan was shot to death by a private security guard working for settlers in the East Jerusalem village of Silwan. Sarhan was 32-years-old and the father of five. Following his murder, violent clashes between the Palestinian villagers from Silwan and the Israeli police, guards, and settlers erupted.

The violent collisions lasted for days and Jerusalem police conducted raids into Palestinian homes, detaining residents. The Wadi Hilweh Information Centre reports that seven men aged 16 to 26 were detained on Wednesday, 29 September, and are now awaiting prosecution.

The fighting during the past week resulted in numerous injuries, including the death of a 14-month-old boy who was killed in his home due to suffocation from tear gas, and the hospitalization of Sarhan’s widow who suffered from asphyxiation after Israeli police shot a tear gas canister into her family’s home.

Media reports described the clashes as reminiscent of the second Intifada, as this past week Palestinians began throwing stones and Molotov cocktails, while the Israeli police and military shot tear gas canisters and rubber bullets into large crowds of residents.

According to Odeh, the recent escalation in tensions between settlers and Palestinians living in East Jerusalem is a result of the larger effort to dispossess Palestinian residents in East Jerusalem of their land: “They envision Jerusalem as the centre of Israel, everything they do—land confiscation, military incursions, checkpoints—is aimed at achieving this—an undivided, majority Jewish capital.”

There is a vast inequity in the security provided to settlers and Palestinians living in East Jerusalem. This iniquity is a significant factor in the tensions that manifested in last week’s clashes. Understanding the role of the Israeli government in creating this imbalance helps to situate the recent events in Silwan in the larger context of Israeli policy toward East Jerusalem.

Walking in the streets of East Jerusalem areas like Silwan and Sheikh Jarrah, the occupation is palpable, visible and tragic. I see Jewish settlers and Palestinians living side by side, sharing the sidewalks and passing each other in their cars. However, knowing that every settler in this neighbourhood has acquired his home at the cost of an evicted Palestinian family renders this initial impression of coexistence as illusory.

Every settler home is draped in or marked by an Israeli flag; and with the highly visible presence of security forces, these homes more closely resemble fortresses, heavily guarded by armed men in fatigues.

Settler home in Silwan. Photo: Jillian Kestler-D’Amours

Settler home in Silwan. Photo: Jillian Kestler-D’Amours

Status of East Jerusalem

In 1967, when control over East Jerusalem was seized by Israel after the Six Day War, Palestinian civilians living in the disputed capital city were given “permanent residency” status in Jerusalem.

Following the Oslo Accords in the 1990s, which divided the rest of the Palestinian Occupied Territories into varying levels of autonomy, East Jerusalem was exempted, as Israel argued the city should be reserved for “final status talks.” And so to this day, East Jerusalem and all its residents remain under the full jurisdiction of Israel. Despite repeated pronouncements by the international community that East Jerusalem is illegally occupied, the Palestinian Authority is barred from exercising any power within the city’s parameters.

The annexation of East Jerusalem has been accompanied by a systematic increase in Israeli settlements there; Palestinians are evicted in order to make room for these increases. According to a report by the Arab Studies Society, a total of 24,178 dunums (roughly 6,000 acres) of land had been confiscated from Palestinians in East Jerusalem for the use of Jewish settlements as of 2008.

The Gap in Security

The advance of settlers into East Jerusalem is accompanied by discrimination against Palestinians residing there. It is important to note that while Palestinians pay the same taxes as all residents of the city, the Jerusalem municipality spends only 11% on services for those areas in East Jerusalem.

A fact that is most significant in the light of recent events is the disproportionate allocation of security to Jewish settlers and Palestinians in East Jerusalem. The Israeli government allots separate funds to provide for the security of settlers who populate these same East Jerusalem areas.

Israel’s Ministry of Construction and Housing controls the security provided to settlers in Palestinian neighbourhoods. The Ministry contracts private security firms that train and supply armed guards throughout East Jerusalem areas. The Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), an Israeli non-profit organization, reported that the Ministry paid a total of NIS 54,540,000 (roughly 15 million US dollars) to private security firms in 2010.

In contrast, Palestinians must use the Jerusalem police who have a documented history of discriminatory practices towards Palestinians. ACRI conducted an in-depth investigation into how residents of East Jerusalem view the Jerusalem police, revealing that most residents have no trust in them.

ACRI reports, “What emerges from these testimonies is the biased handling of criminal investigations employing blatantly illegal tactics, such as intimidation of relatives with the threat of arrest, and disregard of available evidence. Such practices lead Palestinian residents to believe that police investigations are biased from the start and that they are not conducted with the intention of ascertaining the truth of the matter.”

Silwan resident, Said Abu Nasser states, “The Israeli police merely serve as the ‘hands’ of the operation, to carry out arrests and regular harassment of Palestinians, acting under the orders of the settlement guards.”

In other words, police are largely ineffective in providing security for and protective services to Palestinian residents.

For Odeh, the bigoted behavior of the Jerusalem police is clearly reflected in their response to the recent murder, pointing out that the man who killed Sarhan was released after only 3 hours, because he, like many others, can easily claim self-defense.

While reflecting on the disparity in protection, Odeh asks, “What’s going on in Silwan, it’s part of an escalation. How else could 400 people make life miserable for half a million?”

A sttler looking out on Silwan. Photo: Jillian Kestler-D’Amours

A sttler looking out on Silwan. Photo: Jillian Kestler-D’Amours

Article written by Charlotte Silver,  Source.

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Silwan: The Untold Story

Silwan (Rebecca Fudala)

Palestine Monitor, 3 July 2010

Silwan is home to 50,000 Palestinian residents in East Jerusalem, just south of the old city. Since 1967, no building permits have been approved in the neighbourhood. As families expanded over the years, residents were forced to build without permits making their homes illegal and vulnerable to demolition.

Complicating the situation, the ancient remains of the City of David lie below the heart of the neighbourhood. In the 1990’s ELAD, a private settler organisation, took over management and promotion of the site. Since then, they have closed off public areas and been accused of invasive archaeology. Recently the Planning and Building Committee of Jerusalem approved a plan to demolish 22 Palestinian homes to make way for Israeli settlement growth as well as the construction of a tourist centre, the King’s Garden which will include restaurant and boutiques.

Rebecca Fudala visited the neighbourhood.

Silwan: The Untold Story

Palestine Monitor, 3 July 2010

Silwan is home to 50,000 Palestinian residents in East Jerusalem, just south of the old city. Since 1967, no building permits have been approved in the neighbourhood. As families expanded over the years, residents were forced to build without permits making their homes illegal and vulnerable to demolition.

Complicating the situation, the ancient remains of the City of David lie below the heart of the neighbourhood. In the 1990’s ELAD, a private settler organisation, took over management and promotion of the site. Since then, they have closed off public areas and been accused of invasive archaeology. Recently the Planning and Building Committee of Jerusalem approved a plan to demolish 22 Palestinian homes to make way for Israeli settlement growth as well as the construction of a tourist centre, the King’s Garden which will include restaurant and boutiques.

Rebecca Fudala visited the neighbourhood.

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Deleting The East

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Palestine Monitor, Michael Carpenter, 2 July 2010

Three months ago Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “spat in Obama’s eye” by timing high-level diplomatic visits with the announcement of sweeping development plans in East Jerusalem. Now history repeats itself as Jerusalem announced its intention to implement an even more ambitious master plan, giving Israelis unprecedented residency rights in the prospective Palestinian capital. And once again, Bibi is off to Washington. Written by Michael Carpenter.

Construction began this past weekend on the hotly contested grounds of the Shepherd Hotel. The compound lies in the Palestinian neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah, east of the green line, just north of the old city. The hotel itself was considered property of the Jordanian authority (having passed from the ownership of the Grand Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini) until it was purchased in 1985 by Irving Moskowitz, a wealthy American Jew and a major financier of the Israeli settler movement.

In the wake of dramatic 2008-2009 settlement activity in Sheikh Jarrah—recall that several Palestinian families are now living in tents outside their former homes while protected Israeli settlers sleep inside—plans were floated to construct 20 Jewish housing units on the property of the Shepherd Hotel. The plan was met with international condemnation and was silenced more than once, but it never went away. This past Sunday, construction work began, although site security explained it was just a test of the foundations’ support strength. The new development would see upwards of hundred Israelis wedged into the heart of Palestinian East Jerusalem.

“You see, they want all Sheikh Jarrah,” says local resident Muhammad Sabagh. Muhammad has problems of his own, because a legal claim against his house is currently grinding through the Israeli courts. He hopes to be luckier than some of his now-homeless neighbours. “We don’t accept settlers in our neighbourhood,” he says.

East Jerusalem is the erstwhile Palestinian capital in waiting, but for years Israeli officials have pumped up the volume on the propaganda line that, as Netanyahu puts it “(Jerusalem) is an open and undivided city”. By this convenient reasoning, the east-west distinction is irrelevant, and Israelis should be able to build and develop on the occupied Palestinian side as freely as they do in the West. In a statement issued this week, city officials pleaded neutrality, “Just like any other municipality in Israel, Jerusalem Municipality hands out building permits in the entire city based on their compliance with professional criteria only, and without checking religion, race, or sex, which is against the law.”

This statement, however, includes a massive lie of omission, because it implies that Palestinians have equal building rights. While the city may not discriminate on “religion, race, or sex, which is against the law,” they do discriminate on the basis of citizenship. The Palestinians of East Jerusalem have been deemed “permanent residents” by the Israeli authorities but specifically excluded from citizenship. This distinction is crucial because only citizens can legally obtain building rights from the Israeli Land Administration (ILA), which has jurisdiction over most of the city’s residential landscape—both East and West Jerusalem.

As a report issued by an Israeli non-profit organization, Ir Amim, concluded:

“Of all the land designated for housing development in West Jerusalem and in the Israeli neighbourhoods in East Jerusalem (35,000 dunams), at least 79% (27,642 dunams) is ILA land, and therefore theoretically off limits to the city’s Palestinian residents.”

This means that outside of Palestinian neighbourhoods in East Jerusalem, Palestinians have the official legal basis for building or owning in just 20% of the city by virtue of their non-citizen status. And within that sliver of the city, along with their own already inhabited neighbourhoods, the difficulty of obtaining legal permits is notoriously difficult, both financially and bureaucratically.

It has been ignored that Israel holds East Jerusalem by occupation, taken by force in the war of 1967. Like the rest of the occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem was never meant to be a part of any Israeli state. By the Geneva Convention, the transfer of civilian population into occupied territory is a war crime. East Jerusalem belongs to the Palestinians.

Despite this inconvenient truth, the city’s right-wing Municipality are well on their way to making their latest attempt at ethnic cleansing legal. If there are no objections within 60 days, the new document will be enshrined in law and the “open and undivided” rhetoric will form the legal framework for unlimited Israeli expansion in occupied East Jerusalem.

Under the new arrangement, projects like the Shepherd Hotel compound in Sheikh Jarrah would require no special authorisation. There would be no difference between East and West Jerusalem.

The master plan also highlights the municipality‘s cynicism in using green spaces as a justification for demolishing Arab homes. Now it has been made transparent these “green areas” are fair game, rendering many previous points of contention irrelevant. The City of David project was initially marketed as a heritage site with a few residency buildings. It now seems that it will be a glorified settlement with “1,000 new housing units”. It doesn’t take a clairvoyant to work out who these homes are intended for. So while Israel softened the Silwan bulldozing announcement with promises that Israeli settlers would not move into the cleared neighbourhood, the lie has been revealed.

Under the false banner that Jerusalem is “open and undivided,” the heightened policies of ethnic cleansing in Sheikh Jarrah and Silwan will become standard practise, undermining the long term prospects for trust and progress. And what hope of Obama and the U.S.A stepping in at this crucial, sensitive time to reign in its rogue state, to reign in its rogue municipality and avert catastrophe? What are the chances of Bibi getting a stern dressing down in the oval office? Sadly negligible, because as far as Israel is concerned, there is no such thing as going too far.

Read a previous article about ethnic cleansing in Silwan http://www.palestinemonitor.org/spi…

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Jerusalem Municipality plans to demolish 22 houses in Silwan to build archeological garden

Silwan and Al-Thori neighborhood 16 June 2010 (Photo:silwanic.net)

B’Tselem, 29 June 2010

On 21 June 2010, the Jerusalem Municipality’s Planning and Building Committee approved the municipality’s plan to demolish 22 houses in al-Bustan, a neighborhood in the center of Silwan in East Jerusalem. In recent years, the Municipality has been advancing a plan to build an archeological garden in the neighborhood. The plan calls for the demolition of a sizeable percentage of the houses in al-Bustan. The Municipality refused to discuss with the residents an alternative plan they proposed. The Municipality’s plan requires the approval of the District Planning and Building Committee, in the Ministry of the Interior.

Al-Bustan, in Silwan. Photo: Noam Preiss, B'Tselem, 19 March 2009.

Al-Bustan, in Silwan. Photo: Noam Preiss, B'Tselem, 19 March 2009.

According to the plan, one-quarter of the houses in al-Bustan (22 of the 88 houses) will be demolished and an archeological garden will be built on the land. The Municipality proposes that the residents of the houses slated for demolition should move to another area in the neighborhood, and promises to approve retroactively the other houses, which were built without permits. However, the Municipality does not own the land in these other sections, so it has no authority or ability to make this offer to the residents. The families will have to purchase land and build their houses after the Municipality demolishes their property. Even if they manage to buy the land, there is no guarantee they will be able to build there. The substantial prerequisites for obtaining building permits that the Municipality places on East Jerusalem residents regarding proof of ownership and installation of the requisite infrastructure effectively prevent lawful Palestinian construction in East Jerusalem.

One thousand persons live in al-Bustan. Most of the houses were built in the 1980s and 1990s. A few were built prior to Israel’s annexation of East Jerusalem in 1967. In November 2004, the Municipality began to promote a plan for an archeological garden, known as “The King’s Valley,” which will surround the Old City. The city engineer, Uri Shetrit, ordered the demolition of all the houses in the neighborhood in order to increase the area of the archeological garden. In early 2005, the Municipality began to carry out the directive. Residents of the neighborhood began to receive demolition orders and indictments were filed against them for building without a permit. At the time, the Municipality demolished two houses in al-Bustan. Currently, orders to demolish 43 structures remain in force.

Silwan and Al-Thori neighborhood 16 June 2010 (Photo:silwanic.net)

Silwan and Al-Thori neighborhood 16 June 2010 (Photo:silwanic.net)

Local residents requested the attorney general to prevent the destruction of the neighborhood. Also, international pressure was brought to cancel the plan. Subsequently, Mayor Uri Lupoliansky stated in 2005 that he had retracted the plan and that the residents would be allowed to propose a plan that meets their development needs. In August 2008, the residents presented their plan. The city engineer, Shlomo Eshkol, informed them that the plan would not be considered in the immediate future, and that the Municipality was proceeding with the plan to build an archeological garden on the site.

The Municipality’s outline plan for the Old City, drafted in 1977, marked the existing structures in al-Bustan, although the neighborhood was classified as open space. Although more than thirty years have passed since then, the Municipality has refused to issue building permits or approve existing construction, except in isolated cases. Choking development of the neighborhood is a typical example of the Municipality’s planning and building policy in East Jerusalem since 1967.

This policy is especially problematic in that, in Silwan, plans are being advanced to develop the compound run by the settler non-profit societies Elad and Ateret Cohanim, and build the City of David National Garden, operated by Elad, which is being constructed between Palestinian houses surrounding al-Bustan. In addition, these societies are building institutions and parking lots, and archeological excavations are taking place close to Palestinian houses in Silwan. Also, the Municipality has refrained from sealing a seven-story structure that Ateret Cohanim built in Silwan without a permit.

The plan to demolish houses in al-Bustan denies its residents the right to housing, which is derived from the right to an adequate standard of living as defined in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. In addition, the Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits the occupying state to destroy the property of residents of occupied territory, who benefit from the status of protected persons, “except where such destruction is rendered absolutely necessary by military actions.” The Convention further states that “extensive destruction and appropriation of property not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly” constitute a grave breach of the Convention.

Source: B’Tselem

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Hagit Ofran in Silwan: “This time it sounded serious”

Silwan June 2010 (Photo: Hagit Ofran)

Marian Houk, 28 June 2010

Hagit Ofran of Peace Now is one of the Israeli experts on the settlements her compatriots are building in the West Bank [including East Jerusalem].

Hearing from Silwan on Sunday evening about the escalating clashes there, she went to see what was happening, and then posted her account, complete with photos and a video, on her blog, Eyes on the Ground in East Jerusalem.

For anyone who thinks these are just minor incidents, the title of her post, Battlefield, gives a good idea of what happened in a crowded, run-down Palestinian area of East Jerusalem where Israeli Border Police are the only available authority — and they are hostile.

Hagit observed, in this post, that “Most of my neighbors in West Jerusalem heard nothing of this and don’t even know that 5 minutes drive from us, in East Jerusalem, there are Palestinian neighborhoods with tens of thousands of residents, including the neighborhood of Silwan which in the last months has been at the center of clashes between settlers, police and residents … Silwan and East Jerusalem in general, are far from the hearts and minds of the Israeli media and public attention. Police feel they are in the Wild West and that nobody will do anything to them”.

In her post, Hagit reported that: “Almost every evening over the last weeks there have been clashes in Silwan between police, guards and residents. This time it sounded serious. M. reported on injured and ambulances that were delayed. I decided to go see close up. … When I got there the situation was heated: a force of Border Police, armed and shielded from head to toe, were running through the narrow alleys of the neighborhood and being pelted by a shower of stones. They were shouting, firing tear gas, firing shock grenades and occasionally also live fire.

How did it all begin? According to the residents’ testimony, this time again it was a group of guards from a private security company who guard the settlers at Beit Yehonatan [n.b., the seven-structure house built without pemits by a settlement organization in this Palestinian but now hotly-contested neighborhood of East Jerusalem], who were walking around the streets provocatively. According to some of the testimonies the guards spat at Palestinian children, and according to others, the children were the ones to start cursing the guards. One way or another friction was created, followed by a confrontation, during which stones were thrown at the guards, who did not hesitate and fired in the air (see for example how they acted two weeks ago).

Then came Border Police forces. They accompanied the guards into the home of the Abu Nab family, who are in the middle of a legal procedure against settlers over ownership of the house. Lately MK Uri Ariel of the right announced the settlers’ intention to forcefully enter the house soon. According to residents’ testimony, the guards, with the police, broke the house’s shutters and the window and threw a tear gas grenade into the house.



Tear gas is a strong substance. It causes anyone near it suffocation and severe burning of the eyes. If you throw it into a house – it is a real danger. The members of the family were at home at the time, including small children and women, who were evacuated from the house coughing and frightened.

At first I didn’t believe that the police really threw tear gas into a house. The tear gas must have been in the street and entered through the open window, I thought to myself. But when I got to the house at midnight, three hours after the gas was thrown, there was still a smell of gas in the air, and when I stood in the kitchen for a minute I began coughing and suffocating from the remnants of gas that were still hanging in the air.

In light of the settlers’ threats of their intention to evacuate the family from the home, everybody was sure it was an infiltration [sic - maybe she means incitement, a ruse to effect eviction?] by settlers: the family goes out of the house because of the gas, and the guards and police who already entered the house take over it…

The residents were quick to respond, stones were thrown at the police and the guards, and police responded by firing gas, shock grenades and sometimes also live fire.

Eventually the Abu Nab family returned home…

East Jerusalem is so tense right now. Every small thing is perceived as a provocation. On a week when the mayor announced the intention to demolish homes in Silwan for a biblical park, with rumors about the beginning of construction at the Shepherd Hotel continuing to circulate and when the settlers threaten to forcefully enter another house in the middle of the Palestinian neighborhood in Silwan, things seem to be on the brink of explosion.

And another thing: this time, just like yesterday, the Border Police took advantage of the situation to vandalize the neighborhood. A police jeep forcefully crashed into Palestinian cars parked on the street, and according to residents’ testimony, the police broke car windows with rifle butts”…

Hagit Ofran’s post can be viewed in full here.

  • Marian Houk is the Editor of UN-Truth news site.