RAMALLAH, West Bank — Some 500 Jerusalemites living in 28 housing units in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, in the north of Jerusalem’s Old City, face the risk of eviction at the hands of the Israeli authorities in favor of Jewish settler organizations, on the grounds that the latter own the land.

On March 19, the neighborhood’s residents began a protest against the eviction plan, with hundreds of Jerusalemites taking to the streets and participating in a march. Prior to that, an online campaign was launched March 15, dubbed “Save the Sheikh Jarrah Neighborhood.”

Yaqoub Abu Arafa, member of the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood committee, told Al-Monitor, “Families are threatened with eviction. The families have been living in housing units that were established in 1954 by the UNRWA, as the first attempt to settle refugees.”

He said that the Jordanian government, which had jurisdiction over the West Bank at the time, cooperated with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East to build the project on an area of 16 dunams (4 acres). Abu Arafa explained that UNRWA financed the construction of the housing units and handed them over to the families in exchange for giving up their rights and status as refugees, including the right to education, care and all other services provided by the UN organization.