Two young Palestinians were beaten to death on their land by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank on Friday.

A funeral was held on Sunday for Sayfollah “Saif” Mussalet, 20, and Muhammad Shalabi, 23, who were brutally killed by a large group of settlers in an attack that left more than 30 other Palestinians injured.

Mussalet died from his wounds as settlers attacked medical responders, and Shalabi’s body was recovered later that evening, having reportedly bled to death from a gunshot wound while ambulances and rescuers were blocked by Israeli military.

Settlers continued to roam the Palestinian farmland freely for hours.

Both young men were from the neighbouring Mazra’a Sharqiya village, and Saif was an American citizen visiting loved ones and friends over summer. His family released a statement calling his death an “unimaginable nightmare and an injustice that no family should ever have to face”.

They said he was a “beloved member of his community . . . a brother and a son [and] a kind, hard-working, and deeply-respected young man.”

Saif built a widely-loved business in Tampa, Florida, and was known for his generosity, ambition, and connection to his Palestinian heritage.

Following news of his death an overwhelming number of locals gathered at his store to share their grief and anger.

Frequent atrocities
Such lynchings have become a frequent atrocity across the West Bank, as settler gangs are repeatedly emboldened by the Israeli government, police, and military who protect and often facilitate violence against Palestinian communities.

Two settlers were reportedly detained following the attacks, but released again within hours.

Between 2005-2020, 91 percent of Palestinian cases filed with police were closed without indictment, according to the Israeli human rights organisation B’tselem, and settlers undergo trial with full legal rights and higher lenience in Israeli civil courts.

By contrast, Palestinians are tried in Israeli military courts, established in violation of the fourth Geneva Convention and largely considered corrupt for maintaining a 95 percent conviction rate (Military Court Watch).

Additionally, more than 3600 Palestinians are currently held in Israeli captivity without charge or trial, with all detainees facing an increase in documented physical, psychological, and sexual abuse — including children.

A funeral was held for the young men on Sunday in Mazra’a Sharqiya village, with thousands in attendance. The killings continue a systemic pattern which alongside military incursions, has seen 153 Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in the West Bank since the beginning of 2025 (OCHA).

UN resolution
A UN resolution last September reaffirmed the illegality of Israel’s presence in the occupied Palestinian territories, demanding a total and unconditional withdrawal within a year.

Ten months on, settler attacks have escalated in frequency and severity, settlement expansion has rapidly increased, and numerous Palestinian villages have been forcibly displaced after months of sustained violence.

Communities across the West Bank are facing erasure, and as the death toll climbs pressure continues to grow for the New Zealand government to enforce stronger political sanctions, including the entire opposition uniting behind the Green Party’s Unlawful Occupation of Palestine Sanctions Bill.

Cole Martin is an independent New Zealand photojournalist based in the Middle East and a contributor to Asia Pacific Report.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Two young Palestinians were shot and beaten to death on their land, and 30 injured, by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank on Saturday.

A large group of settlers attacked the rural Palestinian village of Sinjil, in the Ramallah governorate, beating Sayfollah “Saif” Mussalet, 20, who died from his wounds after the mob blocked medical access for several hours.

The body of Muhammad Shalabi, 23, was recovered that evening — having reportedly bled to death while ambulances and rescuers were blocked by Israeli military as settlers roamed the Palestinian farmland for hours.

Both young men are from the neighbouring Mazra’a Sharqiya billate, and Saif was an American citizen visiting loved ones and friends over summer. His family released a statement calling his death an “unimaginable nightmare and an injustice that no family should ever have to face”.

They said he was a “beloved member of his community . . . a brother and a son [and] a kind, hard-working, and deeply-respected young man.”

Saif built a widely-loved business in Tampa, Florida, and was known for his generosity, ambition, and connection to his Palestinian heritage.

Following news of his death an overwhelming number of locals gathered at his store to share their grief and anger.

Frequent atrocities
Such lynchings have become a frequent atrocity across the West Bank, as settler gangs are repeatedly emboldened by the Israeli government, police, and military who protect and often facilitate violence against Palestinian communities.

Two settlers were reportedly detained following the attacks, but released again within hours.

Between 2005-2020, 91 percent of Palestinian cases filed with police were closed without indictment, according to the Israeli human rights organisation B’tselem, and settlers undergo trial with full legal rights and higher lenience in Israeli civil courts.

By contrast, Palestinians are tried in Israeli military courts, established in violation of the fourth Geneva Convention and largely considered corrupt for maintaining a 95 percent conviction rate (Military Court Watch).

Additionally, more than 3600 Palestinians are currently held in Israeli captivity without charge or trial, with all detainees facing an increase in documented physical, psychological, and sexual abuse — including children.

A funeral was held for the young men on Sunday in Mazra’a Sharqiya village, with thousands in attendance. The killings continue a systemic pattern which alongside military incursions, has seen 153 Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in the West Bank since the beginning of 2025 (OCHA).

UN resolution
A UN resolution last September reaffirmed the illegality of Israel’s presence in the occupied Palestinian territories, demanding a total and unconditional withdrawal within a year.

Ten months on, settler attacks have escalated in frequency and severity, settlement expansion has rapidly increased, and numerous Palestinian villages have been forcibly displaced after months of sustained violence.

Communities across the West Bank are facing erasure, and as the death toll climbs pressure continues to grow for the New Zealand government to enforce stronger political sanctions, including the entire opposition uniting behind the Green Party’s Unlawful Occupation of Palestine Sanctions Bill.

Cole Martin is an independent New Zealand photojournalist based in the Middle East and a contributor to Asia Pacific Report.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Palestinian advocate Issa Amro has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize this year for his decades of work advocating for peaceful resistance against Israel’s illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank.

The settlements are illegal under international law — and a record 45 were established last year under cover of the war on Gaza,

Advocacy against the settlements has seen Amro become a target.

He is based in the occupied West Bank, in Hebron — a city of about 250,000 mostly Palestinian people. He founded Youth Against Settlements.

He paints a picture about what daily life is like.

“Our life in West Bank was very hard and difficult before October 7 [2023 – the date of the Hamas resistance movement attack on southern Israel]. And after October 7, life became much harder. . . .

‘Daily harassment, violence’
“So there are hard conditions. No jobs. No work. No movement in the West Bank. Schools are affected . . . There is daily harassment and violence — they attack the Palestinian villages, they attack the Palestinian cities, they attack the Palestinian roads.

“In my city Hebron, it has got much, much harder. People are not able to leave their homes because of the closure of the checkpoints. The [Israeli] soldiers are very mean and adversarial . . .

“The soldiers close the checkpoints whenever they want. In fact, the soldiers act like militia, not like a regular army.

“My house was attacked in the last 20 months . . . ”

• At least 55,104 people, including at least 17,400 children, have been killed in Israel’s war on Gaza. At least 943 Palestinians, more than 200 of them minors, have been killed in the occupied West Bank.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

For Basel and his community, this land isn’t merely territory — it’s identity, livelihood, their past and future.

No Other Land vividly captures the intensity of life in rural Palestinian villages and the everyday destruction perpetrated by both Israeli authorities and the nearby settler population: the repeated demolition of Palestinian homes and schools; destruction of water sources such as wells; uprooting of olive trees; and the constant threat of extreme violence.

While this 95-minute slice of Palestinian life opened the world’s eyes, most are unaware that No Other Land takes place in an area of the West Bank that is ground zero for any viable future Palestinian state.

Designated as “Area C” under the Oslo Peace Accords, it constitutes 60% of the occupied West Bank and is where the bulk of Israeli settlements and outposts are located. It is a beautiful and resource-rich area upon which a Palestinian state would need to rely for self-sufficiency.

For decades now, Israel has been using military rule as well as its planning regime to take over huge swathes of Area C, land that is Palestinian — lived and worked on for generations.

This has been achieved through Israel’s High Planning Council, an institution constituted solely of Israelis who oversee the use of the land through permits — a system that invariably benefits Israelis and subjugates Palestinians, so much so that Israel denies access to Palestinians of 99 percent of the land in Area C including their own agricultural lands and private property.

‘This is apartheid’
Michael Lynk, when he was serving as UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, referred to Israel’s planning system as “de-development” and stated explicitly: “This is apartheid”.

The International Court of Justice recently affirmed what Palestinians have long known: Israel’s planning policies in the West Bank are not only discriminatory but form part of a broader annexation agenda — a violation of international humanitarian law.

To these ends, Israel deploys a variety of strategies: Israeli officials will deem certain areas as “state lands”, necessary for military use, or designate them as archaeologically significant, or will grant permission for the expansion of an existing settlement or the establishment of a new one.

Meanwhile, less than 1 percent of Palestinian permit applications were granted at the best of times, a percentage which has dropped to zero since October 2023.

As part of the annexation strategy, one of Israel’s goals with respect to Area C is demographic: to move Israelis in and drive Palestinians out — all in violation of international law which prohibits the forced relocation of occupied peoples and the transfer of the occupant’s population to occupied land.

Regardless, Israel is achieving its goal with impunity: between 2023 and 2025 more than 7,000 Palestinians have been forcibly displaced from their homes in Area C due to Israeli settler violence and access restrictions.

At least 16 Palestinian communities have been completely emptied, their residents scattered, and their ties to ancestral lands severed.

Israel’s settler colonialism on steroids
Under the cover of the international community’s focus on Gaza since October 2023, Israel has accelerated its land grab at an unprecedented pace.

The government has increased funding for settlements by nearly 150 percent; more than 25,000 new Israeli housing units in settlements have been advanced or approved; and Israel has been carving out new roads through Palestinian lands in the West Bank, severing Palestinians from each other, their lands and other vital resources.

Israeli authorities have also encouraged the establishment of new Israeli outposts in Area C, housing some of the most radical settlers who have been intensifying serious violence against Palestinians in the area, often with the support of Israeli soldiers.

None of this is accidental. In December 2022, Israel appointed Bezalel Smotrich, founder of a settler organisation and a settler himself, to oversee civilian affairs in the West Bank.

Since then, administrative changes have accelerated settlement expansion while tightening restrictions on Palestinians. New checkpoints and barriers throughout Area C have further isolated Palestinian communities, making daily life increasingly impossible.

Humanitarian organisations and the international community provide much-needed emergency assistance to help Palestinians maintain a foothold, but Palestinians are quickly losing ground.

As No Other Land hit screens in movie houses across the world, settlers were storming homes in Area C and since the Oscar win there has been a notable uptick in violence. Just this week reports emerged that co-director Hamdan Ballal was himself badly beaten by Israeli settlers and incarcerated overnight by the Israeli army.

Israel’s annexation of Area C is imminent. To retain it as Palestinian will require both the Palestinian Authority and the international community to shift the paradigm, assert that Area C is Palestinian and take more robust actions to breathe life into this legal fact.

The road map for doing so was laid by the International Court of Justice who found unequivocally that Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza is unlawful and must come to an end.

They specified that the international community has obligations in this regard: they must not directly or indirectly aid Israel in maintaining the occupation and they must cooperate to end it.

With respect to Area C, this includes tackling Israel’s settlement policy to cease, prevent and reverse settlement construction and expansion; preventing any further settler violence; and ending any engagement with Israel’s discriminatory High Planning Council, which must be dismantled.

With no time to waste, and despite all the other urgencies in Gaza and the West Bank, if there is to be a Palestinian state, Palestinians in Area C must be provided with full support – political, financial, and legal — by local authorities and the international community, to rebuild their lives and livelihoods.

After all, Area C is Palestine.

Leilani Farha is a former UN Special Rapporteur on the right to adequate housing and author of the report Area C is Everything. Republished under Creative Commons.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has designated the political wing of Hamas as a “terrorist” entity.

New Zealand designated the military wing of Hamas as a terrorist entity in 2010.

Foreign Minister Winston Peters said the government unequivocally condemned the “brutal” terrorist attacks by Hamas in October, and the move had been taken after he received official advice.

“What happened on 7 October reinforces we can no longer distinguish between the military and political wings of Hamas,” Peters said.

“The organisation as a whole bears responsibility for these horrific terrorist attacks.”

The designation means any assets of the terrorist entity in New Zealand are frozen. It also makes participation in or supporting Hamas’ activities, or recruiting for it a criminal offence.

However, Peters made clear the designation would not affect the provision of humanitarian support to Palestinians, and would not stop New Zealand providing aid to benefit civilians in Gaza.

‘Gravely concerned’
“Nor does it stop us providing consular support to New Zealand citizens or permanent residents in the conflict zone,” he said.

“We remain gravely concerned about the impact of this conflict on civilians and will continue to call for an end to the violence and an urgent resumption of the Middle East Peace Process.

“A lasting solution to the conflict will only be achieved by peaceful means.”

The coalition government has also banned several extremist Israeli settlers from travelling to New Zealand.

Peters said those banned had committed violent attacks against Palestinians in the West Bank.

It was not clear how many settlers have been banned and who exactly they are.

There has been a significant increase in extremist violence perpetrated by Israeli settlers against Palestinian populations in recent months, Peters said.

He acknowledged the official advice provided to him had been commissioned by then Prime Minister Chris Hipkins in October.

Just over a fortnight earlier, Peters had specifically urged Israel not to begin a ground offensive in Rafah, a city in southern Gaza.

A day later, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon issued a joint statement with his Australian and Canadian counterparts calling for the same thing.

It included a call for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire, the release of hostages, condemned Hamas for its terror attacks on Israel, and said Israel must protect Palestinian civilians.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

During World War I, the New Zealand government took a big area of land at Raglan from the local Tainui Awhiro people to build an airfield and bunker as part of local war preparations.

The airfield was never built and, instead of returning the land to the people, the government used the Public Works Act in 1928 to give legal justification for the Crown keeping the land.

In 1967, local iwi were evicted from the land and forced to rebuild nearby with the government then selling the land for the Raglan Golf Course.

In the early 1970s, Tainui Awhiro, led by Māori activist Eva Rickard, began the fight to have the land returned and after much protest, marches, petitions, lobbying, occupations and arrests on the golf links themselves they were finally successful in 1983.

The land was handed back — but not until they had fought off a government “offer” requiring them to buy their land back from the Crown.

It was my first experience of being part, in a very small way, of a Māori land protest.
One of the important things I remember from Raglan, Bastion Pt and those early land protests were the messages of support and solidarity which came in from around the country and all over the world.

Typically, these would be read out at the start of a protest hui and local iwi and supporters took great heart from them. They lifted spirits and warmed hearts when things sometimes seemed bleak.

Long way to decolonisation
We have a long way to go in decolonisation in Aotearoa New Zealand but we have come a significant way from the crude government behaviour at Raglan.

On the other side of the world, colonisation in Palestine is continuing apace since the mass expulsions of Palestinians from their land in 1948 (more than700,000 people evicted from their homes and land by Israeli militias from more than 500 villages with dozens of civilian massacres along the way).

Every day for the past 74 years, more Palestinians have been evicted from their land using all manner of spurious, creative justifications, backed by a court system run by the Israeli colonisers.

In the spotlight today are 12 Palestinian villages with more than 1000 people who face eviction from their land in an area of the South Hebron Hills called Masafer Yatta.

An Israeli court has given the Israeli army the go-ahead to evict the people and take over their land for a “live firing range”. The range isn’t needed. The Israeli army already has close to 18 per cent of the occupied West Bank set aside for firing zones — it’s just a commonly used pretext for land theft.

If the Israeli army is able to evict these people, it will be the largest eviction of Palestinians in more than 50 years.

Like the early colonists in New Zealand, Israel wants the land without the people.

Palestine’s Raglan struggle
Masafer Yatta is Palestine’s Raglan Golf Course, albeit on a larger scale and as part of the longest-running military occupation in modern times.

The people of Masafer Yatta are fighting back with protests and vowing not to move despite five weeks of thuggish bullying by Israeli military with vehicles racing around the land in a massive show of force to intimidate and cower the people. Live bullets ripped through roofs of houses in the Khallat Al Dabea village during this “military training”.

The local Palestinian people are organising to defend their land and homes against Israel’s aggressive colonisation.

Young people are on the frontline. Co-founder of non-violent resistance group Youth of Samud (Sumud means “steadfastness”) Sami Hurraini was detained by the Israeli army in the hot sun for eight hours without food or water last week but is undaunted.

Despite receiving a demolition order for their centre in Masafer Yatta, Hurraini says, “Of course Israel won’t stop us! We will rebuild the centre every time they demolish it.”

The least we can do is add our voices of international support and solidarity to the people of Masafer Yatta. We need to let them know they are not alone — just as similar messages gave heart to Māori fighting land theft here.

And we have to let Israel know there are accountabilities for ethnic cleansing and the war crimes associated with colonisation of Palestinian land.

Palestinians are not looking for our sympathy — they are looking for practical solidarity. If enough voices are raised around the world Israel will be forced to back down.

The strongest voice we have is the government’s. We need to insist our government uses it on behalf of all of us.

John Minto is a political activist and commentator, and spokesperson for Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa. This article was first published by The New Zealand Herald and is republished with the author’s permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Papua’s Guinea’s National Court has issued an interim restraining order stopping the planned eviction of thousands of Morata settlers on portion 2733 in the capital of Port Moresby.

MSaka Lawyers, engaged by National Capital District (NCD) Governor Powes Parkop, went to court last Friday in light of the looming eviction by First Estate Limited, a company owned by a local individual and his Chinese business partner.

Governor Parkop, a former human rights lawyer before entering politics, said the interim orders should give the settlers “some comfort”.

Clarifying his government’s stance, he reiterated that people claiming title to land and their investment partners should provide alternative solutions to the thousands of affected families who are made homeless due to eviction.

He called on title holders and their investor partners to have talks with him on how this humanitarian crisis could be addressed.

“Our people cannot be left homeless for corporate greed or just for the benefit of one title holder,” he said.

More proactive action
“Lands Department and National Land Board should ensure too that they don’t award title to individuals over land which already has thousands of people in occupation,” said Governor Parkop.

Governor Parkop has also directed the Physical Planning Division and Regulatory Department of NCDC to be more proactive in stopping illegal occupation and settlement of both state and customary land in the city.

He made the call yesterday during the first Physical Planning Board Meeting for NCD for 2022.

“Many of these issues could have been avoided had NCDC and Department of Lands cooperated to prevent or stop all illegal occupation and settlements of state and customary land in the city,” he said.

First Estate Limited will be moving a motion on NCDC standing and abuse of court process while NCDC will be moving a motion on the legality of the UDL.

Justice Kariko ordered that:

1. The matter is adjourned to 2 Feb 2022 for hearing of the Plaintiff’s Notice of Motion (NOM) filed on 10/04/21 and the First Defendant’s NOM filed on 02/07/21;
2. Parties shall file and serve any further affidavits for the hearing by Monday 31/01/22;
3. Parties should settle and hand up to the court on the return date a chronology of all related litigation in all courts in relation to the dispute in this proceeding;
4. The hearing of the motions shall not be further adjourned except for good reasons; and
5. Until the return date, the First Defendant, its servants and agents including members of the police force are restrained from entering into the subject land and carry out steps to evict the residents on the land formerly known as Portion 2733, Morata, NCD.

Republished with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

“If I don’t steal your house, someone else will.”

This is how an Israeli settler called “Yakob” responded to the Jerusalemite journalist Muna El Kurd when she asked him to leave the garden of her home in Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood.

The video of the exchange Kurd posted on her Instagram page was shared on many news pages and sites, going viral and becoming iconic of the oppression her family—and the neighbourhood—currently faces.

The ongoing apartheid in Jerusalem.

“Even if i get out of the house, it won’t be returned to u” pic.twitter.com/5sELdmClH5

— Abed? #SaveSheikhJarrah (@Abd_HajYahia) May 1, 2021

Since El Kurd posted her video, tensions in the occupied Palestinian territories have flared up to the worst level in years. The blockaded enclave of Gaza has been pounded by Israeli airstrikes as Muslims marked the end of Ramadan, their holy month of fasting.

So far, at least 212 people, including 61 children, have been killed in Gaza so far since the latest violence began more than a week ago. Some 1500 Palestinians were also wounded.

Ten Israelis, including two children, have been killed as Hamas, which governs Gaza, fired hundreds of rockets on Israeli-occupied territories, in response to earlier Israeli provocation.

Meanwhile, hundreds of Jerusalemites have been wounded by occupation forces who have clamped down on protesters and worshippers in the past weeks.

The tensions in Jerusalem coincided with the start of Ramadan on May 13. Occupation Israeli forces set up barricades to block Jerusalemites from accessing the area of Bab Al-Amud, preventing them from observing a longtime ritual of casual gatherings in that part of the Old City.

This resulted in protests—which have come to be called the “Bab Al Amud Uprising”— which eventually displaced the barriers and obstacles erected by the Occupation forces.

This was followed by Israeli forces’ storming of Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem’s Old City, one of Islam’s holiest sites, firing tear gas and stun grenades and wounding many, and coincided with Israeli settlers appropriating the homes of Palestinians in Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood, citing Israeli court verdicts.

Sheikh Jarrah: a decades-old struggle
The struggle over Sheikh Jarrah dates back to 1948, when representatives of the then-nascent state of Israel tried to storm the neighborhood, displace its people and destroy their homes. They were prevented from doing so by the British forces, which were protecting the city of Jerusalem at the time.

Fast-forward to the Six-Day War—also known as the June 1967 War—when Israeli forces occupied the West Bank, including Jerusalem and its environs.

Since then, consecutive Israeli governments have sought to displace the Palestinian population from the city of Jerusalem to shift its demographics to a Jewish majority, in line with efforts to position the city as Israel’s capital and mobilise countries to relocate their embassies there.

This despite Palestine’s United Nations-backed claim to at least part of the city as its capital.

The neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah, located to the north of Jerusalem’s Old City, contains one of the main arteries linking the concentration of the city’s Jewish population in the city to Hebrew University. Seizing control of the neighbourhood would bring the entire eastern side of Jerusalem under Israel’s authority.

The expulsion of Palestinians goes back to the period 1948-1967, when Jerusalem was under Jordanian control. In 1956, the Jordanian authorities, in cooperation with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), constructed housing for 28 refugee families in Sheikh Jarrah. The Jordanian Ministry of Construction and Development provided the land, with the proviso that construction took place through the UNRWA and that ownership of the homes would be transferred to their residents three years after the completion of construction. But this did not happen until 1967, when Jordan lost control of the West Bank.

أيام قليلة تفصلنا عن قرار محكمة الاحتلال بإخلاء حي #الشيخ_جراح او تأجيله.
أكثر من 500 فلسطيني موزعين على 28 عائلة يواجهون شبح نكبة جديدة وتهجير قسري.
لنعلي أصواتنا دعماّ وإسنادا لأهلنا في الحي المقدسي. #انقذوا_حي_الشيخ_جراح pic.twitter.com/XjDc6pL541

— فلسطين27 (@Pal_27KM) April 30, 2021

A few days separate us from the occupation court’s decision to evacuate the Sheikh Jarrah’s neighborhood #الشيخ_جراح or postpone it. More than 500 Palestinians over 28 families face the spectre of a new catastrophe and forced displacement. Let’s raise our voices to support our people in the Jerusalem’s neighborhood. #انقذوا_حي_الشيخ_جراح pic.twitter.com/XjDc6pL541 — فلسطين27 (@Pal_27KM) April 30, 2021

With Jerusalem under Israeli control, Israeli settler organizations began occupying houses whose residents happened to be absent at the time, even if temporarily. The Shatti family, for example, lost their house while they were away on a visit to Kuwait in 1967.

In 1972, two Israeli societies comprising Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews went to the Israeli Land Registry Department claiming ownership of the area of Karm Al-Jaouni in Sheikh Jarrah. The claim was based on a purchase document allegedly dating from the Ottoman period. The societies were granted ownership of the land.

Between 1974-1975, the two societies then filed a lawsuit in an attempt to force four families to evacuate their homes. The Israeli court dismissed the cases because the residents were tenants protected by law.

But the lawsuits resumed again in 1982, this time against 23 families, 17 of whom retained an Israeli lawyer, Tosya Cohen. In 1991, however, Cohen shocked his clients by concluding a deal with the two settler societies, recognising their ownership of the land. Cohen’s recognition created a legal precedent that paved the way for the two societies to strip Palestinians such as the Hanoun and Ghawi families of their homes.

An initial court decision directed these two families to pay rent to the plaintiffs, and although they complied, they were expelled in 2002. In 2003, the two societies sold their share in the land to an investment company. The change in ownership allowed the Hanoun and Ghawi families to appeal their expulsion, enabling them to return to their homes until the case was adjudicated.

Mona ElKurd’s family has been the target of lawsuits since the beginning of the 1990s. After numerous rulings, the last of which was in 2009, Israeli settlers were granted the right to appropriate the ElKurd’s house. Since that time, ElKurd family has been sharing their home with the settlers who appropriated it, leaving them with only 50 metres to live in.

More recently, in October 2020, El Kurd, Al Qasim, Al Jauni and Al Skafi families received evacuations notifications from the Israeli Magistrate’s Court. In September, three other families—Hammad, Dajani, and Al Dawoudi—received similar notifications, bringing the total of people facing threats of eviction from their homes to 55. These decisions were suspended until February 2021, during which an evacuation order was issued to be carried out by Thursday, May 6, 2021, resulting in the current escalation.

Sheikh Jarrah residents ‘can’t breathe’
As tensions brewed, Palestinians took to social media to speak about the oppression they’re facing.

Bentzi Gopstein (Lehava), one of the “Death To Arabs” march organizers, is coming to Sheikh Jarrah tonight at 8:30 pm. #SaveSheikhJarrah from colonial violence. https://t.co/ov5rqBjDVE

— mohammed el-kurd (@m7mdkurd) May 6, 2021

The phrase “I can’t breathe”—the last words uttered by George Floyd as he was killed by police last year in Minnesota—is trending on social media among Palestinian users and sympathisers, as Israeli occupation forces violently cracked down on those expressing solidarity with the evicted residents of Sheikh Jarrah.

“I cant breath” he said.

The apartheid never stops. pic.twitter.com/jnQXZr6W5M

Another Twitter user, Kawther, wrote:

— Abed? #SaveSheikhJarrah (@Abd_HajYahia) May 4, 2021

The same violence but no one speak . ??#انقذوا_حي_الشيخ_جراح pic.twitter.com/N1HYD5M4iF

— kawther slama (@KawtherSlama) May 6, 2021

In a gesture of solidarity with residents of Sheikh Jarrah, Jerusalemites broke their fast every day of Ramadan in front of houses whose residents were being made to evacuate. This prompted Itamar Ben Ghafir, a member of Israel’s Knesset and leader of the Israeli far-right party Otzma Yehudit, to participate in a gathering in the district on May 6, the day set by the court to evacuate these houses, where he made the provocative announcement that he would relocate his office to Sheikh Jarrah to confront the “Arab extremists”.

When a crowd of Palestinians gathered to express their rejection of the parliamentarian’s incitements, a settler pepper-sprayed the Palestinians, an act documented in many video clips.

Israeli settlers spray pepper gas at Palestinian youths in Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood.
#SaveSheikhJarrah #انقذو_حي_الشيخ_جراح pic.twitter.com/baiP9UeuH0

— Huda Fadil ?? #Gaza (@HudaFadil2) May 6, 2021

This led to a clash between the two sides, involving the throwing of chairs and stones.

مستوطن يرش الشباب بغاز الفلفل وقت الافطار، والشباب ما قصرو معاه ?.#انقذو_حي_الشيخ_جراح #SaveSheikhJarrah pic.twitter.com/pmNArc0bFy

— شجاعية (@shejae3a) May 6, 2021

A settler sprays the guys with pepper spray, and the guys didn’t disappoint #انقذو_حي_الشيخ_جراح

#SaveSheikhJarrah pic.twitter.com/pmNArc0bFy

— شجاعية (@shejae3a) May 6, 2021

Israeli occupation forces intervened and arrested several Palestinians.

The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs presented the official documents containing details of the displacement operations carried out by Israel to the International Criminal Court on May 5, but the confrontations on the ground are not expected to abate.

On May 10, an Israeli court postponed a session scheduled that day to decide the fate of Palestinian residents of Sheikh Jarrah. Announcing that the date of the upcoming session would be set within 30 days, the court permitted families facing eviction to remain in their houses until the session is held.

Muna El Kurd, whose Instagram video has turned her into an emblem of the struggle of Sheikh Jarrah’s residents, wrote:

We should not stop. Freezing [the decision] is not cancelling it.. The movement of Sheikh Jarrah is a popular and global movement against displacement and colonization in Jerusalem and all of Palestine. We must raise our voices, and intensify efforts through our presence and solidarity in Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood, and intensify our voice on social media platforms, because the violence of the colonial occupation is prevalent and its outbreak in our cities has not been frozen.

أيمن حسونة and Yasmeen Omera are Global Voices contributors.Republished with permission from Global Voices under a Creative Commons licence.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz