Israeli security, settlers assault Jerusalemites, IOF troops seize Arab home

Israeli security men assisted Jewish settlers in attacking Palestinian Jerusalemites who were staging a peaceful sit-in before Arab homes seized by those settlers in Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in occupied Jerusalem on Friday night.

Local sources said that the occupation police violently attacked the Palestinian residents of the suburb and threatened to imprison anyone trying to close the street leading to Sheikh Jarrah.

The policemen had detained 10 Israeli leftists after violently dispersing another sit-in at the suburb on Thursday and severely beat up a journalist.

The Israeli occupation forces, meanwhile, seized by force a Palestinian house in the Old City of Al-Khalil also on Friday night.

Anas Al-Bayed, who rented the house from its owners the Abu Munshar family a few months ago, said that the IOF soldiers broke into his home and forced him under the threat of guns to evacuate it.

The soldiers said that the house was owned by the IOF, Bayed added.

The IOF troops and Jewish settlers systematically harass Palestinians in the Old City of Al-Khalil in a bid to force their evacuation to turn it into a big Jewish settlement.