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Palestinians, Settlers Clash Overnight 06/22 06:11
JERUSALEM (AP) -- Palestinians and Jewish settlers hurled stones, chairs and
fireworks at each other overnight in a tense Jerusalem neighborhood where
settler groups are trying to evict several Palestinian families, officials said
Tuesday.
The threatened evictions fueled protests and clashes in the runup to last
month's 11-day Gaza war and pose a test for Israel's new governing coalition,
which includes three pro-settler parties but is hoping to sideline the
Palestinian issue to avoid internal divisions.
Israeli police and border officials said they arrested four suspects in the
Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood. It was unclear who started the brawl. The officials
said someone launched fireworks at police forces and residents' houses and that
"several Molotov cocktails were thrown and stones were thrown." One woman was
reportedly injured when she was hit in the back by a stone, police said.
The Red Crescent emergency service said its crews treated 20 Palestinians,
including 16 suffering from pepper spray and tear gas and others wounded by
rubber-coated bullets. Two other people were wounded, including an elderly man
who was hit in the head, it said.
The Red Crescent said settlers threw stones at one of its ambulances and
Israeli forces sprayed skunk water on a second ambulance belonging to the
service.
The eruption of violence is the latest friction in Sheikh Jarrah, where
weeks of unrest captured international attention ahead of the 11-day
Israel-Hamas war last month. The cease-fire took effect on May 21, but the
long-running campaign by Jewish settlers to evict dozens of Palestinian
families continues.
And so the cycle of tension endures, in a stark early test for Israel's new
coalition government, which is just over a week old.
At the helm under a rotation agreement is Prime Minister Naftali Bennett,
head of the right-wing Yamina party. In two years, he'll be replaced by Yair
Lapid, leader of centrist Yesh Atid. And leading the opposition is Likud leader
Benjamin Netanyahu, ousted from the premiership after holding the post for 12
years.
An intervention by Israel's attorney general at the height of the unrest has
put the most imminent evictions on hold. But rights groups say evictions could
still proceed in the coming months as international attention wanes,
potentially igniting another round of bloodshed.
The settlers have been waging a decades-long campaign to evict the families
from densely populated Palestinian neighborhoods in the so-called Holy Basin
just outside the walls of the Old City, in one of the most sensitive parts of
east Jerusalem.
Israel captured east Jerusalem, home to holy sites sacred to Jews,
Christians and Muslims, in the 1967 war and annexed it in a move not recognized
internationally. Israel views the entire city as its capital, while the
Palestinians want east Jerusalem as the capital of their future state.
The settlers say the homes are built on land that was owned by Jews prior to
the 1948 war surrounding Israel's creation. Israeli law allows Jews to reclaim
such property, a right denied to Palestinians who lost lands and homes in the
same conflict.
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