Palestinians Vow to Fight Evictions Amid Zionist Provocations

AL-QUDS (KI) – Al-Qud’s District Court postponed a ruling this week on an appeal by seven Palestinian families, comprising 44 people, facing expulsion from their homes in the Batan al-Hawa area of Silwan.
Palestinians say, however, what they see as the “Judaization” of East al-Quds, incorporating expulsions, will continue – it is just a matter of time.
The court delay followed an earlier ruling by the magistrate’s court that the families, part of 19 families from Batan al-Hawa, be expelled from their homes to make way for Zionist settlers who claim they lived there before 1948.
“The court will delay the ruling because the situation is very tense in East al-Quds now due to the Palestinian families also facing expulsion in Sheikh Jarrah and the raids into Al-Aqsa Mosque,” Fakhri Abu Diab, head of the Committee for the Defense of Silwan’s Lands and Real Estate and a researcher on al-Quds affairs, told Al Jazeera.
“With the American Secretary of State Antony Blinken currently in the region it’s also not a good time to proceed with making Palestinians homeless,” Abu Diab said.
“However, the Israeli courts will eventually side with the settlers in the future and the expulsions will go ahead.”
Clashes erupted in Shekih Jarrah over several weeks recently as Palestinians protested the pending expulsion of several families from their homes and were attacked by Zionist troops, resulting in many injuries and arrests.
Weeks of harassment of Palestinians in al-Quds and attempts to appropriate Palestinian lands in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of the city by the Zionist regime was followed by the 11-day aggression on Gaza, which began on May 10 and killed at least 253 Palestinians.
The regime’s occupation police have detained 1,700 Palestinians in the occupied territories during the last two weeks as 300 aggressions were registered against Palestinians and their properties.
According to the Arab Emergency Committee, these detentions and aggressions came amidst the violent crackdown by the Zionist regime on protests staged by Palestinians against the regime’s aggression on Al-Aqsa Mosque and in solidarity with the Gaza Strip.
In a latest incident, Zionist troops attacked Palestinians taking part in protests in the occupied West Bank against the regime’s settlement expansion and in support of fellow countrymen in al-Quds, leaving one killed and dozens of others injured.
The Palestinians Health Ministry said that a young man was shot dead on Friday by Zionist troops as they attacked an anti-settlement rally on Mount Sobeih in Beita town, south of the occupied West Bank city of Nablus, using live ammunition, rubber bullets, sound bombs and tear gas.