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Resident Mahmoud Salhiyeh took to the roof of the house in
Sheikh Jarrah on Monday, threatening to blow it up with gas
canisters if he and his family - who he said have lived there
for decades - were forced out.
Family members and activists maintained a vigil inside and on
top of the building until armed police cleared the site before
dawn on Wednesday.
A mechanical digger then demolished the property, leaving behind
a mound of rubble and personal effects that was removed some
hours later.
Police said several people were arrested "on suspicion of
violating a court order, violent fortification and disturbing
public order."
Jerusalem municipal authorities had expropriated the plot on
which the house stood, which lies in a tree-lined area of East
Jerusalem north of the Old City walls that Israel captured and
occupied in a war in 1967 and later annexed.
Israel regards all of Jerusalem as its capital, but Palestinians
claim the east of the city as the capital of a future state.
'WE CAN'T REACH THEM'
Mohammed Salhiyeh, a relative, said he had been unable to
contact Mahmoud or anyone else who lived in the house.
"Their phones are all off, we can't reach them," he told
Reuters. He said the evicted family had made no plans to
relocate.
Police and the Jerusalem municipality said the family had been
given "countless opportunities" to hand over the land since an
evacuation order was served in 2017.
It said authorities were enforcing a court-approved eviction
order of "illegal buildings built on grounds designated for a
school".
Sheikh Jarrah has seen clashes between Jewish settlers and
Palestinian families facing eviction, turning it into an emblem
of what Palestinians regard as an Israeli campaign to force them
out of East Jerusalem.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called Wednesday's
demolition a "war crime" and urged Washington the United States
to "compel the government of the Israeli occupation to stop the
policy of ethnic cleansing against the Palestinian people,
according to a statement published by the official WAFA news
agency.
One international activist who watched the early morning
demolition said: "I am devastated. You see livelihoods being
destroyed in front of your eyes."
The site is across from the British Consulate in East Jerusalem,
which said on Monday that evictions in occupied territory, in
all but the most exceptional circumstances, were against
international humanitarian law.
It urged the Israeli government to "cease such practices which
only serve to increase tensions on the ground."
(Additional reporting by Roleen TafakjiWriting by Jeffrey
Heller; Editing by Kim Coghill and John Stonestreet)
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