Palestinian residents of the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of Jerusalem submitted a petition to Israel's High Court of Justice on Thursday requesting an end to police roadblocks when trying to enter the neighborhood.
The residents complained in the petition that Palestinians not from the neighborhood were being blocked from entering, while far-Right Israeli groups and activists were being permitted to enter without police interference.
Adalah - the Legal Center for the Rights of the Arab Minority in Israel, an NGO that assists Arab Israelis and Palestinians in protecting their legal rights, submitted the petition on the residents' behalf. In the petition, it argued that police enforcement has been unequally applied to Jewish Israeli and Palestinian Arab residents.
The NGO added that the police barriers are a form of restriction on freedom of movement that results in racial profiling by police.
"The police, which is already withdrawing its sponsorship of the settlers' takeover of the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, is now using a racist measure similar to that seen only in the darkness of regimes, which is also contrary to international law," Adalah said in a statement.
"The far-Right [has been] holding Palestinian residents hostage in their homes. What was done at the entrances to the neighborhood, together with the nightly attacks on the Palestinian residents, clearly illustrates that Jewish supremacy is what Israel is currently struggling to preserve and in whose name leads to bloodshed."