Palestine – (Warsoor) – Israeli police have evicted a Palestinian family and demolished their house in the East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah.
Officers raided the Salhiya family home before dawn, arresting several people before a bulldozer moved in.
There had been a two-day stand-off after the head of the family threatened to blow up his house rather than move.
Israeli officials said the building was illegal – something the family denied – and the land was needed for a school.
The case had drawn international attention, with the European Union and UK warning that evictions in occupied territory were illegal under international law and fuelled tensions on the ground in Jerusalem.
Both Israel and the Palestinians hold competing claims to the ancient city.
Israel – which occupied the formerly Jordanian-held eastern part in 1967, and effectively annexed it in 1980 in a move not recognised internationally – regards the whole of Jerusalem as its capital.
Palestinian leaders want East Jerusalem – which is home to about 350,000 Palestinians and 200,000 Jewish settlers – to be the capital of a future Palestinian state.
SOURCE:
BBC