Head of Hamas’s political bureau Ismail Haneyya has said that the Palestinian resistance factions are rallying behind the families of the east Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah who are threatened with displacement from their homes.
“I say to our people in Sheikh Jarrah: The resistance with all its factions and the nation are standing behind the steadfast citizens who are defending Jerusalem the Aqsa Mosque and our holy sites” Haneyya said in a speech during a webinar held on Tuesday on the anniversary of the Balfour Declaration.
Commenting on their rejection of an Israeli court’s offer to make them tenants of their own homes the Hamas official applauded the Sheikh Jarrah families for declaring their attachment to their land and their rights and showing a high level of responsibility and awareness.
He affirmed that the Sheikh Jarrah families who are facing an Israeli plan to evict them from their homes had been exposed lately to a lot of pressures and temptations in order to make them accept an unjust compromise that would strip them of their ownership of their own homes.
In a related context the Israeli occupation police on Tuesday evening quelled a group of activists after they rallied in the east Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah in solidarity with its residents.
According to local sources police forces intensified their presence in the neighborhood and forced several activists rallying there to leave the area.
Sheikh Jarrah residents on Tuesday rejected a compromise that had been proposed by Israel’s high court of justice. The proposal urged them to remain in their homes for at least 15 years in exchange for recognizing that their homes and lands are owned by a Jewish settler group and pledging to pay nominal rents to the alleged new owner.
Lower Israeli courts had already approved the expulsion of several Jerusalem families from the neighborhood to make way for Jewish settlers. They okayed Israeli claims that Palestinian houses were built on lands owned by Jews before Israel was established in 1948.
