JERUSALEM, November 19, 2008 (WAFA)- One Palestinian and four internationals were taken, Wednesday, into Israeli police custody from a protest tent of a Palestinian family evicted from their home in Sheikh Jarrah, East Jerusalem. The protest tent, established following the eviction of the Al-Kurd family on the November 9, 2008 has been demolished by Israeli forces despite being situated on Palestinian private property.

Dozens of Israeli police and soldiers arrived at the tent before ordering its evacuation. They forced international activists out of the tent and took four of them into police custody. One Palestinian, a resident of Sheikh Jarrah, was also taken into custody after he attempted to reach the tent as it was being demolished. Later on, the internationals were released without charge. However the Palestinian resident of Sheikh Jarrah is still being held.

The decision to remove the al-Kurd family paves the way for the takeover of 26 multi-storey houses in the neighborhood, threatening to make 500 Palestinians homeless and signifying the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from East Jerusalem by the Israeli State. In July the US State Department brought forward an official complaint to the Israeli government over the eviction of the al-Kurd family, openly questioning the legality of terms on which the Israeli Jewish settler group claimed to have purchased the land.

In July 2008 the Israeli Supreme Court ordered the eviction of the Al-Kurd family, for their refusal to pay rent to the settlers for use of the land. Although the settlers claim to the land had been revoked two years earlier, the court instead based their decision on an agreement made between a previous lawyer and the settlers. Al-Kurd family, and the entire Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood rejected this agreement and fired their legal representative at the time.