The Israel Police assisted the city of Jerusalem in executing an eviction order overnight between Tuesday and Wednesday for a home in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood that was the site of a tense standoff earlier Tuesday, which members of the family living in the house taking gas canisters onto the roof and threatening to blow themselves up.
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Channel 13 News reported Wednesday morning that 25 protesters were arrested. The police said some were detained for questioning on suspicion of interfering with the execution of a court order, carrying out a violent blockade, and disturbing the peace.
The Israel Police stressed that despite what it called false reports on Arab social media, there were no unusual incidents during the protests.
The Salhiya family has been facing the threat of eviction from their home in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of east Jerusalem since 2017, when the land where their home sits was allocated to build a school for children with special needs.
When police arrived to execute the eviction order on Monday, Salhiya family members went up to the building's roof with gas canisters, threatening to use them on themselves if they were forced out of their home.
By Tuesday, police sent for the eviction were already removed, but children of the Salhiya family remained on the roof with the gas canisters, their father, Mahmud, told AFP.
According to him, no agreements or understandings were reached, but lawyers for the family filed a petition to the High Court of Justice on Tuesday to cancel the eviction order.
In a statement to AFP on Tuesday, the municipality of Jerusalem stressed the Salhiya family had numerous opportunities to move out of their home and the city had every intention of taking the plot under a district court decision.
Hundreds of Palestinians are facing evictions from their homes in Sheikh Jarrah and other east Jerusalem neighborhoods. Circumstances surrounding the eviction threats vary.
In some cases, Jewish Israelis have mounted legal challenges to claim the plots they say were illegally taken during the 1940 War of Independence.
Palestinians say their homes were legally purchased from the Jordanian authorities who controlled east Jerusalem between 1948 and 1967.
i24NEWS contributed to this report
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