Israeli forces arrest 3 solidarity activists

For Immediate Release:

Israeli forces arrest 3 solidarity activists in Sheikh Jarrah.

3:30pm, 26 July 2009:

Israeli police arrested 2 American nationals and 1 British national in Sheikh Jarrah as they were trying to enter the Darwish Hijazi home that settlers had occupied.

Police had also earlier arrested 3 international activists and 1 Israeli as they were trying to prevent settlers from occupying the Darwish Hijazi home in Sheikh Jarrah.

Around 12 border policemen violently arrested the 3 internationals, breaking one of their glasses. The internationals had tried to enter the home from the backyard to prevent settlers from destroying the Palestinian home.

All of the arrested were taken to the police station on Salah al-Din street in occupied East Jerusalem.

At the moment, parts of the house are being demolished from the outside by a digger truck. Around ten settlers are still inside of the house and several police, border police and soldiers are present in the area.

Please contact:

Carl Torngren (English) 054-561-7639 Sasha Solanas, ISM Media office (English & Russian) 054-903-2981

The case of Sheikh Jarrah

The neighbourhood consists of 28 families, and is facing a number of eviction orders, which are part of a plan to implant a new Jewish settlement in the area, close to the Old City. After the Al Kurd family has been forcibly removed from their home in November 2008, it is now the turn of the al-Ghawe and Hannoun families to face imminent eviction, while others are awaiting further eviction orders.

The families have gone through 37 years of legal battles, fighting for the right to stay in their houses where many of them have been born and which they legally own. To date, the Israeli courts, including the High Court, decided in favour of the Jewish settler organisations, which claim the ownership of the land based on falsified documents. The courts have not only ignored all the documents produced by the Sheikh Jarrah community which clearly prove their legal status and the ownership of the land, they have also shown that their decisions are not based on law and justice, but are clearly political decisions, serving the goal of cleansing the Palestinian people from Jerusalem.

ENDS

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