Israeli police have destroyed a Palestinian family’s home that has been at the centre of an anti-forced expulsion campaign in Sheikh Jarrah, occupied East Jerusalem.
Israeli police forcibly removed the Salhiyeh family from their home before demolishing the property on Wednesday morning.
The demolition follows days of protests by the Salhiyeh family, who tried to stave off the demolition by threatening to blow up the house.
Some 25 people were reportedly arrested during the raid.
The family told Al Jazeera that dozens of heavily armed personnel broke into their home while they were asleep and assaulted family members, arresting six of them, including the head of the household, Mahmoud Salhiyeh.
The Salhiyeh family said they bought the property before 1967, when Israel occupied East Jerusalem, but an Israeli court ruled against them.
In 2017, Jerusalem’s municipality allocated the land to build a special needs school.
Commenting on the demolitions, Hagit Ofran, director of Peace Now, said: “It’s good to build a school, but why take out families from their home and not use another public land that you already confiscated in the past and gave it to settlers, this is discrimination.”
Attempts to expel families in Sheikh Jarrah fuelled last year’s 11-day Israeli offensive on Gaza.
Hundreds of Palestinians are facing forced expulsion from homes in East Jerusalem, which Palestinians want to be their future capital.
