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East Jerusalem neighborhood key to halting Palestinian-Israeli fighting

The planned eviction of Palestinian families from their lands in Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, claimed by Israeli settlers, has shed light on the neighborhood and its history.
A Palestinian family looks out from their home toward a protest by Israeli, Palestinian and foreign activists, against evictions of Palestinian families from their homes, in the mostly Arab neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, East Jerusalem, Aug. 4, 2017.

RAMALLAH, West Bank — Planned evictions in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in East Jerusalem, as well as the Israeli attacks on Al-Aqsa Mosque compound and Muslim worshippers during the holy month of Ramadan, have been a detonator that triggered a confrontation in the Palestinian territories in the past weeks. The confrontation was quickly transported inside the Green Line (to cities within Israel), and escalated into a war on the Gaza Strip.

Sheikh Jarrah has now become a key to reaching a truce. The Palestinian armed factions have set as a condition that any cease-fire negotiations between them and Israel includes the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood and Al-Aqsa Mosque dossiers.

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