Israeli justice on Wednesday postponed a hearing on the fate of Palestinian families threatened with eviction by Israeli settlers in occupied East Jerusalem, weeks after a similar case sparked an outbreak of violence.
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About 40 Palestinians are threatened with eviction in favor of settlers in the district of Silwan, located near the Old City.
On Wednesday, the Jerusalem district court decided to postpone a hearing in the case, time to consider a request from the families demanding "
the opinion of the attorney general,
" their lawyer Yazid Qawaar told AFP.
"
It is obvious that the (Israeli) government supports the settlers' project and therefore the attorney general must take his responsibilities,
" he accused.
According to Yazid Qawaar, the court could announce its decision within a week.
Dozens of people demonstrated on Wednesday in support of these families in front of the court, where many Israeli police officers were deployed, according to AFP journalists.
At the heart of the trial: land ownership of land on which houses are built in which Palestinians live but which are coveted by settlers, in East Jerusalem, a Palestinian sector of the city, illegally occupied and annexed by Israel according to the UN .
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According to Israeli law, if Jews can prove that their family lived in East Jerusalem before the 1948 war, they can ask for their "
right to property
" to
be restored to them
.
However, there is no such law for Palestinians who lost their property during the war.
On May 9, a court in Jerusalem postponed a key hearing in a similar case concerning another neighborhood in East Jerusalem, Sheikh Jarrah, where protests in support of families had been punctuated by clashes with the Israeli police.
254 Palestinians perished in Israeli strikes
Clashes then broke out on the Esplanade des Mosques, Islam's third holiest site and Judaism's holiest site, between Palestinians and Israeli forces.
With hundreds of injured, most of them Palestinians, the clashes had been the prelude to a war between Israel and the Islamist Hamas movement in power in Gaza.
From May 10 to 21, 254 Palestinians perished in Israeli strikes in the Gaza Strip, including 66 children and fighters, according to local authorities.
In Israel, rocket fire from Gaza killed 12 people, including a child, a teenage girl and a soldier.