Jewish settlers hold provocative evening march in Silwan

Palestine Information Center – August 25, 2017

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM – Dozens of Jewish settlers along with officials on Thursday staged a provocative evening march in the Palestinian Silwan district of Occupied Jerusalem and entered a house that had been already sized and turned into a synagogue in Baten al-Hawa neighborhood.

A reporter for the Palestinian Information Center said the settlers were carrying Torah scrolls and Israeli flags as they were marching to the house that was appropriated a few years ago at the pretext that it was once a synagogue.

Member of the Silwan Land Defense Committee Fakhri Abu Diyab said that scores of Israeli police forces were deployed throughout the area and on rooftops of homes to protect the participants in the march.

Abu Diyab affirmed that Israeli agriculture minister Uri Ariel, right-wing Knesset members, and officials from the Jewish Home Party, and Ashkenazi chief rabbi of Jerusalem Aryeh Stern were among the participants.

He pointed out that it was the first time for the settlers to hold a march in Silwan district.

Silwan and its neighborhoods have always been a target of Judaization projects. The Israeli occupation authority still seeks to demolish several Palestinian homes in the district in order to build a park for its settlers.

In 2005, it started to notify local residents of its intent to raze their homes for the park project, but it had to delay its step several times after home owners managed to extract court verdicts freezing demolition orders.

However, the Israeli municipality in Jerusalem now threatens again to demolish the homes in Silwan after it rejected all the structural blueprints they submitted for their neighborhoods.