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Palestinians and Jewish settlers hurled rocks, chairs and firecrackers at each other in a tense neighborhood of Jerusalem where groups of settlers are trying to evacuate several Palestinian families, officials said Tuesday.
The threatened evictions have fueled protests and clashes in the run-up to last month’s 11-day Gaza war and test Israel’s new ruling coalition, which includes three pro-settler parties but hopes to sideline the Palestinian cause to avoid internal divisions.
Israeli police and border officials said they arrested four suspects in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood. It was not clear who started the quarrel. Police said a woman sustained injuries when she was hit in the back with a stone.
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Israeli security forces take positions during clashes with Palestinians in front of the Dome of the Rock mosque at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem’s Old City, June 18, 2021 (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean, File)
The Red Crescent emergency service said that its crews treated 20 Palestinians, 16 of whom were hit by pepper spray and tear gas, and others were injured by rubber bullets. She added that two other people were injured, one of whom was an elderly man, who was hit in the head.
The Red Crescent said that settlers threw stones at one of its ambulances, and the Israeli forces sprayed drinking water on a second ambulance belonging to the service.
The outbreak of violence is the latest friction in Sheikh Jarrah, where weeks of turmoil grabbed international attention 11 days before the war between Israel and Hamas last month. The ceasefire went into effect on May 21, but the long campaign by Jewish settlers to expel dozens of Palestinian families continues.
And so the cycle of tension continues, in a stark early test of Israel’s new coalition government, which is just over a week old.
Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, head of the right-wing Yamina party, takes office under the rotation agreement. Within two years, he will be replaced by Yair Lapid, the centrist leader of Yesh Atid. The opposition is led by Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu, who was ousted from the premiership after holding the position for 12 years.
The intervention of the Israeli attorney general at the height of the unrest put the impending evictions on hold. But rights groups say the evictions may continue in the coming months as international interest wanes, potentially sparking another round of bloodshed.
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Settlers have waged a decades-old campaign to evict families from densely populated Palestinian neighborhoods in the so-called Holy Basin outside the walls of the Old City, in one of the most sensitive areas of East Jerusalem.
Israel occupied East Jerusalem, home to places holy to Jews, Christians and Muslims, in the 1967 war and annexed it in a move not recognized internationally. Israel regards the entire city as its capital, while the Palestinians want East Jerusalem as the capital of their future state.
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Settlers say the homes are built on land owned by Jews before the 1948 war surrounding the establishment of the state of Israel. Israeli law allows Jews to reclaim this property, a right denied to Palestinians who lost their lands and homes in the conflict itself.
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