International Solidarity Movement
7th April 2010
Update: The Palestinians who were arrested last have been released without charge. No settlers have been questioned or detained in connection with the property destruction they undertook, despite photographic evidence proving their culpability.
Sheikh Jarrah, Occupied East Jerusalem, Israel, 12AM – Right-wing settlers began to dismantle a fence the Al-Kurd family erected around their garden shortly after midnight Wednesday morning. Palestinians and internationals in the Al-Kurds protest tent, where the family has have lived in for four months, placed themselves between the fence and the settlers. Police arrived soon after and arrested two young Palestinian men of Sheikh Jarrah. No settlers were taken into custody. Despite pleas by the Palestinians and internationals who witnessed the event, officers refused to look at the destroyed section of the fence. 
The Al-Kurd family, assisted by residents across east Jerusalem, recently reclaimed their garden during a commemoration of Land Day. The reclamation included the seeding and transplanting of plants and erecting the fence that the settlers attempted to destroy this evening.
“The settlers actions in Sheikh Jarrah are a perfect example of the total power disparity between the Jewish and Palestinian populations of Israel and Palestine,” said Nina Mackay. “With the police behind them, the young settlers can make up any story in an attempt to incarcerate Palestinian residents of Sheikh Jarrah,” the Scottish ISM volunteer concluded.
Approximately 475 Palestinian residents living in the Karm Al-Ja’ouni neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, located directly north of the Old City, face imminent eviction from their homes. All 28 families are refugees from 1948,, whose houses in Sheikh Jarrah were built and given to them through a joint project between the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) and the Jordanian government in 1956.
So far, settlers occupy four Palestinian families, displacing around 60 residents, including over 40 children. they have all been left without suitable housing but only some protest on the street continue to protest against the unlawful eviction from the sidewalk across the street from their homes, facing regular harassment from the settlers and racist police forces.
Ryan Olander – Media Coordinator
International Solidarity Movement
054-883-8369
www.palsolidarity.org
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