Palestinian Foreign Ministry: Ben-Gvir’s opening of an office in Sheikh Jarrah could inflame the situation

OCCUPIED AL_QUDS, (ST)-The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates said today that far-right Israeli MK Iramar Ben-Gvir’s relocation of his office to the highly-tense occupied Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah is a provocative step that threatens to inflame the situation in occupied Palestine, according to Wafa News Agency.

“What is happening in Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood is an official Israeli consolidation of Israelization and Judaization of the Holy City that threatens to change its existing historical, legal and demographic status to serve the narratives of the occupation and its colonial interests,” said the Ministry in a statement.

 The Ministry held the Israeli occupation fully and directly responsible for its escalation in occupied Jerusalem and for any resulting consequences on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

It added that the failure of the international community and the UN Security Council to take the necessary measures to compel Israel, the occupying power, to stop its occupation of Jerusalem encourages the occupying power to persist in the implementation of its colonial Judaization projects in the Holy City.

“The reluctance of the US administration to implement the commitments it has announced regarding the Palestinian issue, including the unjustified delay in reopening the US Consulate in Al-Quds (Jerusalem),” also encourages Israel to go further with its colonial projects, the Ministry said.

Scores of Israeli settlers terrorize families in Al-Quds’ Sheikh Jarrah

On the other hand in Occupied Al-Quds, Scores of Israeli settlers backed by police last night stormed the neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah in occupied Al-Quds (Jerusalem), where they attacked and terrified native Palestinian families and attempted to evict some of them from their homes, Wafa News Agency reported.

Witnesses said that groups of Israeli settlers backed by Israeli occupation Police stormed the neighborhood in middle of the night, pelted stones at homes and smashed some parked vehicles belonging to local Palestinian citizens.

The settlers also attempted to attack the Salem family home in the neighborhood to evict them from their home, hours after the family received an Israeli court ruling of dispossession that orders the family out of their home to hand it over to far-right Jewish organizations.

Israeli occupation Police fired rubber-coated rounds, teargas canisters and stun grenades at local Palestinian citizens who tried to fend off the settlers’ attack, causing cases of suffocation from gas inhalation.

Fatma Salem, a member of the family, said their home was attacked by settlers and that the families were afraid of arson attack by settlers, calling on all those who can reach the neighborhood to do so immediately to stand beside them.

The neighborhood is already an explosive issue as far-right Jewish organizations attempt to expel Palestinians there from their homes, an issue that led to a round of violence last year fueled by Israel’s attempts to expel native families from their homes by force.

Meantime, far-right Israeli MK Itamar Ben Gvir said in the aftermath of the Israeli attack on Sheikh Jarrah that he will again set up a “parliamentary office” in the neighborhood.

Raghda Sawas