The Israeli Supreme Court is holding a hearing on Monday (August 2nd) into the burning case of Palestinian families threatened with eviction by Israeli settlers in occupied East Jerusalem, which sparked deadly violence in May.
Read also: Jerusalem: tense standoff between police and demonstrators in Sheikh Jarrah
Four Palestinian families living in Sheikh Jarrah, in the Palestinian sector of Jerusalem occupied and annexed by Israel, appealed to the Supreme Court after lower courts ruled on their evacuation in favor of Israeli settlers.
But in Israel, it is only possible, with some exceptions, to go to the Supreme Court once and the latter has already ruled in favor of the evacuation in the past.
Palestinian families are therefore waiting to know if they can exceptionally lodge a new appeal.
"
The court could give us leave to appeal,
" said the families' lawyer, Sami Irshaid, to AFP, indicating, however, that it was "
unlikely
" that a final decision will be rendered in the event. daytime.
"The right to property" at the heart of the debates
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.
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.
Dozens of people demonstrate Monday in front of the Supreme Court in support of Palestinian families and against Israeli colonization, noted an AFP journalist.
In May, protests in support of Palestinian residents of Sheikh Jarrah degenerated into clashes with settlers and Israeli police, the beginnings of an outbreak of violence in Israel and the Palestinian Territories.
Clashes then broke out on the Esplanade des Mosques, Islam's third holiest site and Judaism's holiest site, also in East Jerusalem, between Palestinians and Israeli forces.
Read also: Jerusalem: tensions on the Mosque esplanade on the sidelines of a Jewish commemoration
Then from May 10 to 21, the ruling Hamas movement in the Gaza Strip and Israel clashed in a lightning war, fatal to 260 Palestinians, including children and fighters, and 13 people in Israel, including a soldier, a child and a teenage girl. According to Ir Amim, an Israeli association that monitors the evolution of settlements in Jerusalem, up to 1,000 Palestinians in Sheikh Jarrah and the neighboring district of Silwan are at risk of being evicted in favor of settlers.
