JERUSALEM: Twenty-two Palestinians were wounded in overnight clashes with Israeli police in annexed east Jerusalem, the Red Crescent said Thursday, as tensions flare over a controversial land rights case.
Police confirmed 11 arrests in the latest unrest to rock the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood near Jerusalem’s walled Old City, where land disputes between Palestinians and Jewish settlers have fueled hostility for years.
Palestinian protests, which began late Wednesday, continued into the early hours.
The legal case centers on the homes of four Palestinian families on land claimed by Jews.
Earlier this year, a Jerusalem district court ruled the homes legally belonged to the Jewish families, citing purchases decades ago.
The Jewish plaintiffs claimed their families lost the land during the war that accompanied Israel’s creation in 1948, a conflict that also saw hundreds of thousands of Palestinians displaced from their homes.
The Palestinian families implicated in the case have provided evidence that their homes were acquired from Jordanian authorities who controlled east Jerusalem from 1948 to 1967.
Amman has intervened in the case, providing documents to support the Palestinian claims.
Israel seized east Jerusalem in 1967 and later annexed it, in a move not recognized by most of the international community.
The district court ruling infuriated Palestinians in Sheikh Jarrah who viewed it as a further step in what they see as a Jewish settler effort to drive Arabs out of east Jerusalem.
Weeks of clashes that have seen police use skunk water cannons and deploy anti-riot police on horseback have resulted in several arrests.
Israel’s Supreme Court has ordered the sides to seek a compromise.
Sami Irshid, a lawyer for the Palestinians, said the Nahalat Shimon settler movement proposed that one member of each concerned Palestinian family be recognized as a “protected tenant.”
That would temporarily delay eviction until the protected tenant died, at which point the home would return to Nahalat Shimon, Irshid said.
“We reject this completely,” Mona Al-Kurd, one of the Palestinian residents said.
“The settlers want us to recognize their property rights, it is impossible.”
Yehonatan Yosef, an activist with Nahalat Shimon, accused the Palestinian families of rejecting “any compromise.”
“It’s their problem,” he said, noting that if the Supreme Court ruled in the settlers’ favor, the Jewish families would do what they wished with each plot.
The Supreme Court has indicated that if the sides cannot reach a compromise, it will rule on whether the Palestinians can appeal the district court decision.
An appeal process could take years.
Mohammed Deif, the reclusive leader of the military wing of Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, issued a rare public warning on Tuesday, saying Israel would pay a “high price” over the Sheikh Jarrah dispute.
The Palestinians claim east Jerusalem as their future capital, while Israel regards the entire city as its “undivided capital.”
Palestinian foreign minister Riyad Al-Maliki sent a letter to the International Criminal Court urging it to “to take a clear and public stand against crimes perpetrated by Israel against the Palestinian people in Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood.”
Jerusalem clashes wound 22 Palestinians as land rights tensions mount
https://arab.news/btjvh
Jerusalem clashes wound 22 Palestinians as land rights tensions mount
- Police confirmed 11 arrests in the latest unrest to rock the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood near Jerusalem’s walled Old City
Libya says UK to analyze black box from crash that killed general
- General Mohammed Al-Haddad and 4 aides died after visit to Ankara, with Turkish officials saying electrical failure caused the Falcon 50 jet to crash shortly after takeoff
TRIPOLI: Libya said on Thursday that Britain had agreed to analyze the black box from a plane crash in Turkiye on December 23 that killed a Libyan military delegation, including the head of its army.
General Mohammed Al-Haddad and four aides died after a visit to Ankara, with Turkish officials saying an electrical failure caused their Falcon 50 jet to crash shortly after takeoff.
Three crew members, two of them French, were also killed.
The aircraft’s black box flight recorder was found on farmland near the crash site.
“We coordinated directly with Britain for the analysis” of the black box, Mohamed Al-Chahoubi, transport minister in the Government of National Unity (GNU), said at a press conference in Tripoli.
General Haddad was very popular in Libya despite deep divisions between west and east.
The North African country has been split since a NATO-backed revolt toppled and killed longtime leader Muammar Qaddafi in 2011.
Haddad was chief of staff for the internationally recognized GNU, which controls the west. The east is run by military ruler Khalifa Haftar.
Chahoubi told AFP a request for the analysis was “made to Germany, which demanded France’s assistance” to examine the aircraft’s flight recorders.
“However, the Chicago Convention stipulates that the country analizing the black box must be neutral,” he said.
“Since France is a manufacturer of the aircraft and the crew was French, it is not qualified to participate. The United Kingdom, on the other hand, was accepted by Libya and Turkiye.”
After meeting the British ambassador to Tripoli on Tuesday, Foreign Minister Taher Al-Baour said a joint request had been submitted by Libya and Turkiye to Britain “to obtain technical and legal support for the analysis of the black box.”
Chahoubi told Thursday’s press briefing that Britain “announced its agreement, in coordination with the Libyan Ministry of Transport and the Turkish authorities.”
He said it was not yet possible to say how long it would take to retrieve the flight data, as this depended on the state of the black box.
“The findings will be made public once they are known,” Chahoubi said, warning against “false information” and urging the public not to pay attention to rumors.
