Hundreds of Jews and Arabs gathered in the east Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah on Friday in order to protest against the planned eviction of several Arab families by the Nahalat Shimon company, which intends to develop the area for Jewish housing.Prior to the 1948 war for Israel’s independence, the land that Sheikh Jarrah is built on was owned by Jews. The four families who are facing eviction live on land which the Nahalat Shimon Company claims to have the rights to. After the war, 28 families gave up their refugee status in exchange for ownership of homes in the neighborhood, many of which are still owned by the same families today.Israel captured and applied sovereignty to the eastern part of the city in the 1967 Six Day War, unifying Jerusalem. Five years later, two Jewish organizations, whose rights are now owned by Nahalat Shimon, sought to reclaim the four homes, having previously owned the land. Israeli law does not allow the Palestinians to reclaim their initial pre-1948 property, and so the battle has centered on these homes ever since. The protests in Sheikh Jarrah are not new, and had been happening long before mainstream media gave them any attention. However, a social media campaign, during which the hashtag "save Sheikh Jarrah" trended on Twitter for days, combined with the recent military operation in the Gaza Strip, have made the neighborhood the center of both Israeli and international media attention.A series of joint Jewish and Arab protests over the last two weeks calling for peace and for an end to ongoing violence have taken place across Israel and the West Bank. Demonstrations have been held across the North, South, and center of the country, and now in Sheikh Jarrah.Over 200 Jews and Arabs arrived to protest peacefully at the entrance to the neighborhood in a demonstration arranged by the left-wing organization Standing Together."We arrived in Sheikh Jarrah in east Jerusalem to demonstrate together, Palestinian residents and Israelis, against the expulsion of families from the neighborhood," said national director Alon-Lee Green on his Twitter account. "Yes peace can be achieved. That's why we're here. Because where there is a struggle, there is hope."
Tovah Lazaroff contributed to this report.