عربي English Türkçe اردو فارسى
Logo
Latest News
Arab World

Two Arrested at Protest over Jerusalem Evictions

An Israeli policemen stands guard as Palestinians queue at the Bethlehem checkpoint in the occupied West Bank, to try crossing to Jerusalem to attend the third Friday prayers of the fasting month of Ramadan at the Al-Aqsa mosque, on April 30, 2021. / AFP / HAZEM BADER
An Israeli policemen stands guard as Palestinians queue at the Bethlehem checkpoint in the occupied West Bank, to try crossing to Jerusalem to attend the third Friday prayers of the fasting month of Ramadan at the Al-Aqsa mosque, on April 30, 2021. / AFP / HAZEM BADER
TT
TT

Two Arrested at Protest over Jerusalem Evictions

An Israeli policemen stands guard as Palestinians queue at the Bethlehem checkpoint in the occupied West Bank, to try crossing to Jerusalem to attend the third Friday prayers of the fasting month of Ramadan at the Al-Aqsa mosque, on April 30, 2021. / AFP / HAZEM BADER
An Israeli policemen stands guard as Palestinians queue at the Bethlehem checkpoint in the occupied West Bank, to try crossing to Jerusalem to attend the third Friday prayers of the fasting month of Ramadan at the Al-Aqsa mosque, on April 30, 2021. / AFP / HAZEM BADER

Two Palestinians were arrested and ten people injured in clashes in east Jerusalem, according to Israeli police and the Palestinian Red Crescent.

The confrontations on Monday evening came as Palestinian families face eviction, part of an ongoing effort by Jewish Israelis to take control of homes in the in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood.

Israeli police and border police arrived "after a protest including dozens of protesters who disturbed the order" according to the police, who said demonstrators threw stones and bottles at security forces and blocked traffic, AFP reported.

Police said they gave protesters "a reasonable time" to leave the "unlawful protest" before they dispersed the demonstration.

An AFP reporter saw Palestinians singing songs and defying the order to disperse. Officers ended the demonstration with mounted police and foul-smelling water.

The Red Crescent said three of the injured were hospitalized.

Sheikh Jarrah is in east Jerusalem, which Israel conquered in 1967 and annexed in a move not recognized by most of the international community.

Israeli Jews backed by courts have taken over houses in Sheikh Jarrah on the grounds that Jewish families lived there before fleeing in Israel's 1948 war for independence.

No such protection exists for Palestinians who lost their land.

Now Jewish claimants seek to evict a total of 58 more Palestinian families, according to the watchdog group Peace Now. Israel's Supreme Court is set to announce a decision for four of those families on Thursday.

Jordan has intervened, saying that when it administered the area from 1948 to 1967, it built the homes for Palestinian refugees who fled their homes in what became Israel.

Opponents of the evictions have gathered regularly in the neighborhood, including a Jewish Israeli lawmaker who last month was filmed being beaten by police.

Sheikh Jarrah is a short walk from the Old City's Damascus Gate, a plaza popular with Palestinians especially during the fasting month of Ramadan.

The latest protests follow days of clashes after Israeli police blocked the plaza.

Police quelled those protests with stun grenades, water cannons and skunk water before ultimately removing the barriers.

Most Viewed

 
 
Arab World

Lebanon's Caretaker Prime Minister Visits Military Positions in the Country's South

Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati (C) arrives with cabinet ministers for a meeting at Benoit Barakat barracks in Tyre, southern Lebanon, 07 December 2024. (EPA)
Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati (C) arrives with cabinet ministers for a meeting at Benoit Barakat barracks in Tyre, southern Lebanon, 07 December 2024. (EPA)
TT
TT

Lebanon's Caretaker Prime Minister Visits Military Positions in the Country's South

Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati (C) arrives with cabinet ministers for a meeting at Benoit Barakat barracks in Tyre, southern Lebanon, 07 December 2024. (EPA)
Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati (C) arrives with cabinet ministers for a meeting at Benoit Barakat barracks in Tyre, southern Lebanon, 07 December 2024. (EPA)

Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister has begun a tour of military positions in the country’s south, almost a month after a ceasefire deal that ended the war between Israel and the Hezbollah group that battered the country.
Najib Mikati on Monday was on his first visit to the southern frontlines, where Lebanese soldiers under the US-brokered deal are expected to gradually deploy, with Hezbollah militants and Israeli troops both expected to withdraw by the end of next month, The Associated Press said.
Mikati’s tour comes after the Lebanese government expressed its frustration over ongoing Israeli strikes and overflights in the country.
“We have many tasks ahead of us, the most important being the enemy's (Israel's) withdrawal from all the lands it encroached on during its recent aggression,” he said after meeting with army chief Joseph Aoun in a Lebanese military barracks in the southeastern town of Marjayoun. “Then the army can carry out its tasks in full.”
The Lebanese military for years has relied on financial aid to stay functional, primarily from the United States and other Western countries. Lebanon’s cash-strapped government is hoping that the war’s end and ceasefire deal will bring about more funding to increase the military’s capacity to deploy in the south, where Hezbollah’s armed units were notably present.
Though they were not active combatants, the Lebanese military said that dozens of its soldiers were killed in Israeli strikes on their premises or patrolling convoys in the south. The Israeli army acknowledged some of these attacks.