The Israeli occupation bulldozers started on Monday digging a piece of land which the occupation municipality had seized under the pretext of “public interest”, on the eastern entrance of the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, east of occupied al-Quds.

According to the WAFA news agency correspondent, the occupation municipality teams and bulldozers began digging the 4,700-sqm land, owned by four Palestinian families, which was used as a parking lot and carwash.

The families to which the land belongs are the al-Ubaydat, Mansur, Awdat, and Jarallah.

Shadi Nassar, one of the tenants of a facility located on the targeted land, told WAFA that the municipality gave them on Sunday an order of immediate eviction; otherwise, they will be heavily fined. 

“We began to dismantle the carwash, a parking lot used by more than 40 buses, and three containers that served as offices, and today, since the early morning hours, the municipality began to raze the land,” he said.

Ahmad al-Rawidi, an adviser in the presidential office, considered that what is happening in Sheikh Jarrah paves the way for the seizing of 28 estates for the purpose of establishing 200 settlement units. As a matter of course, many of al-Quds residents would be forced to migrate, as a means to change the demography of the city.

Al-Rawidi added that what happened in Sheikh Jarrah comes in the context of the Israeli policy that imposes new geography and demography in the occupied al-Quds, by the complete control over the lands to establish new settlement projects.

It is worth mentioning that the Israeli "Supreme court" had issued a decision at the end of October that allows the takeover of the land by the occupation municipality for the purpose of building a garden for the settlers as a result of allegedly being close to the so-called Shimon HaTzedik shrine.

The newspaper, based on official documents, stated that such plans are unprecedented since, for the first time ever, an initiative is announced to build five neighborhoods and buildings in five regions in occupied al-Quds.  

On October 26, the United States bitterly criticized "Israel"  over settlement expansion. The Biden administration said it 'strongly' opposed new construction on the West Bank.

This comes hours before the Israeli authorities intend to hold a session that would approve the construction of 3,144 settlement units in the occupied West Bank, which the European Union called a violation of international law.

The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs called for international measures and actions to halt settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories and the occupied Syrian Golan.

On the other hand, the ministry welcomed the US giving "Israel" a "yellow card" over plans of advancement in building thousands of new settlement units, in addition to international stances that reject the expansion of settlements.