Israeli police injure 4 Palestinian protesters in East Jerusalem

At least four Palestinians were injured by Israeli police Wednesday during a solidarity demonstration with residents of the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in occupied East Jerusalem, according to an aid agency.

They were protesting against the Israeli government's plan to force some families out of their homes in the neighborhood, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent.

As tensions in the neighborhood increased, police used water cannons to disperse the protesters.

They also intervened against the demonstrators with stun grenades and mounted units and battered and detained some protesters, including a medical staff member.

The Islamic Jihad movement warned Israel that if it does not refrain from its actions in Jerusalem, it will "face an unexpected response."

"Israel's attack on the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of occupied Jerusalem is a systematic war of Judaization," it said.

Referring to the Palestinian people resisting the struggle, the statement emphasized that the people of Jerusalem and the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood would never surrender in the face of all kinds of oppression and terror.

SHEIKH JARRAH NEIGHBORHOOD

The Israeli Central Court in East Jerusalem approved a decision to evict seven Palestinian families from their homes in favor of Israeli settlers as of the beginning of this year.

Since 1956, a total of 37 Palestinian families have been living in 27 homes in the neighborhood. However, illegal Jewish settlers have been trying to push them out on the basis of a law approved by the Israeli parliament in 1970.

Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were forced in 1948 to flee their villages and towns in historical Palestine to neighboring countries including Jordan, Lebanon and Syria.

Residents of another part of Palestine found themselves displaced to the Gaza Strip and the West Bank amid rising attacks by Zionist gangs to pave the way for the creation of the state of Israel.

Palestinians use "Nakba" in Arabic, or "The Catastrophe," to refer to the 1948 expulsions by Zionist gangs.

The Palestinian-Israeli conflict dates back to 1917, when the British government, in the now-famous Balfour Declaration, called for "the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people."