July 04, (THEWILL) – Violent confrontations broke out following Friday midday prayers between Israeli police and residents, with a number of Palestinians wounded and arrested.
Israeli forces fired stun grenades, rubber-coated steel bullets and tear gas canisters at Palestinian demonstrators angered by ongoing home and business demolitions in the area.
Tensions continue after Nidal Rajabe, his brother Fadi, and several other Palestinians from Al Bustan were released to house arrest for five days on Friday, after paying 500 shekels ($150) bail each.
The men were charged with assault when they resisted arrest after Rajabe’s butchery and another Palestinian home were destroyed by Israeli authorities, using CAT excavators, on Tuesday.
Images of a distraught Rijabe trying to defend his butchery and livelihood from being demolished and his subsequent arrest – and those of the other young men who were all beaten – made the rounds on social media almost instantaneously, fuelling a growing vortex of collective anger in occupied East Jerusalem.
Since 2005, Israel has sent demolition notices to residents of about 100 homes in Silwan warning their abodes – housing more than 1,500 people – are to be destroyed on the grounds they were built without a permit.
However, it is almost impossible for Palestinians to get building permits in East Jerusalem, as only about 13 percent of the illegally occupied part of the city has been allocated for Palestinians. Simultaneously, Israeli settlements are actively encouraged with financial incentives and the protection of Israeli law.
