The Israel Police on Wednesday evicted the residents of several illegal structures in Jerusalem's flashpoint Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, arresting 18 people during the evacuation and subsequent demolition of the buildings.
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Police had attempted to carry out the court-ordered eviction several times this week, resulting in a tense standoff with members of the Salhiya family, one of whom threatened to self-immolate if the evictions were carried out.
"The evacuation of the area has been approved by all the courts, including the Jerusalem District Court," the Jerusalem Municipality said in a statement on Wednesday.
The initial evacuation order had been issued in 2017, and the residents of the illegal structures "were given countless opportunities to hand over the land with consent," said the Municipality.
"Unfortunately they refused to do so, even after meetings and repeated dialog attempts by the Jerusalem municipality," the statement continued.
The city added that "the family's illegal takeover of public space prevented hundreds of children with special needs from eastern Jerusalem from receiving an educational service that the municipality seeks to provide."
Earlier in the week, police demolished the family's plant nursery and two storage structures on the property.
The plan for the property, shared by the municipality on its website, includes 18 classrooms and six kindergartens, sports fields and leisure facilities. The city said that the central location of the campus will facilitate the arrival of students from all the Arab neighborhoods in the area and will allow full accessibility and maximum convenience for parents and students.
"Despite the fact that the plan was approved and budgeted years ago, its implementation is severely delayed due to the takeover of the land by foreign parties," the municipality stressed. "The family who invaded the land has built a private commercial business on it and a temporary residential building. Contrary to the family's claim, the buildings they have erected were built illegally in recent years only."
The city also stressed that claims that the area will be expropriated for the purpose of transferring it to Jewish residents are "false and unfounded."
City Hall later said that Mayor Moshe Lion ordered officials to provide a rented home to the family at the city's expense.
A lawyer for the Salhiya family said they purchased the property before 1967, when Israel captured east Jerusalem from Jordan, and have been living there for over 70 years. Ahmed Kadamani says four members of the extended family of 15 were among those who were arrested.
Hagit Ofran, a researcher for the anti-settlement group Peace Now, acknowledged the family had been unable to prove ownership. But she said it was clear they have lived there for years.
She said the special-needs school could have been built elsewhere, including on a nearby plot given to an ultra-Orthodox Jewish boarding school. She also said the house could have been left intact since the new school is to be built on an adjacent plot of land.
"This expropriation could have been done without evicting them," she said. "It's in Sheikh Jarrah, it's in this very sensitive time, all the world is looking and the government didn't find the sense to stop it."
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas condemned the eviction, calling it a "war crime," and saying that Israel bears full responsibility for its "serious repercussions." In a statement from his office, he called on the United States to "intervene immediately to halt the continuing Israeli crimes against our people in Jerusalem."
US Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield had called on Israel to refrain from evicting the residents of the illegal structures.
Speaking to the UN Security Council on Wednesday, she said: "To make progress, both Israel and the Palestinian Authority must refrain from unilateral steps that exacerbate tensions and undercut efforts to advance a negotiated two-state solution."
"That includes annexations of territory, settlement activity, demolitions and evictions – like what we saw in Sheikh Jarrah – incitement to violence and providing compensation for individuals imprisoned for acts of terrorism."
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Israel's Ambassador to the United States Gilad Erdan responded by saying the family "stole public lands for their own private use. This is a municipal issue that has gone through all the respective channels of the independent Israeli legal system."
Meanwhile, the foreign ministries of France, Germany, Italy and Spain all urged Israeli authorities on Wednesday evening to stop the construction of new housing units in east Jerusalem.
Earlier in the month, Israeli authorities approved plans for the construction of around 3,500 homes in east Jerusalem, nearly half of which are to be built in the areas of Givat Hamatos and Har Homa.
In a statement, the European countries said that the hundreds of new buildings would "constitute an additional obstacle to the two-state solution," referring to international peace efforts to create a state for Palestinians.
JNS.org contributed to this report.
