As Iranian missiles land, Israeli judges order new round of Palestinian evictions

Most Israelis associate the recent Iranian war with terrifying missile barrages that caused damage across the country. In occupied East Jerusalem, low-income Palestinian residents of the Silwan neighbourhood suffered a different but familiar type of trauma during the conflict — an onslaught inflicted not by a distant enemy, but rather by the justices of Israel’s Supreme Court.

Drawing on a legal system that favours Jews rather than treating all residents as equal, the Court issued two separate rulings that enabled the immediate eviction of six Palestinian families in Silwan’s Batin al-Hawa area so that settlers of the Ateret Cohanim organisation could take their place.

Meanwhile, in the Masafer Yatta area of the West Bank, destitute Palestinians also faced a heightened threat of eviction during the war, this time from the IDF. At the same time, settler violence surged, expanding from Bedouin encampments to established villages, and even boiling over into an army base.

Video of street confrontation between settlers and Palestinians (Supplied by Zuheir Rajabi):

In the deadliest incident last Wednesday, three Palestinians were killed by troops in Kufr Malik near Ramallah after rioting by settlers, according to Haaretz. The army said troops had come under fire from inside the village, but Palestinian residents denied this.