Israeli security forces walk at the site of a demolished house in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem January 19, 2022. REUTERS/Ammar Awad

i24 News – Israeli police on Wednesday evicted a Palestinian family and demolished their home in the east Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, arresting 18 Palestinians and Israeli activists.

The eviction ended a two-day standoff between Israeli authorities, the family of the house, and protestors.

Jerusalem’s city hall plans to build a special needs school for the neighborhood’s Palestinian residents, along with six kindergartens and other public facilities.

“We do this for any structure that is built illegally. It happens in west Jerusalem, and it happens in east Jerusalem,” said Jerusalem Deputy Mayor Fleur Hasson-Nahoum, The Times of Israel (ToI) reported.

According to the mayor, the home — owned by the Salihya family — was built illegally in the 1990s.

However, the Salihyas say their family lived there since the 1950s on a plot purchased from private Arab landlords.

It was the first eviction in Sheikh Jarrah since 2017.

An 11-day conflict between Hamas in Gaza and Israel erupted last year, as well as internal Palestinian-Israeli clashes, sparked by anger over eviction orders in the neighborhood.

Left-wing Israeli activists identified at least five of the 18 detained as Israelis and the rest as most of the Salihiya family, ToI reported.

“Some were arrested for interrogation on suspicion of violating a court order, ‘violent entrenchment,’ and violating public order,” Israeli police said.

Activists argue that the school could have been built without evicting the family and demolishing the home.

Palestinians constitute more than 34% of Jerusalem’s population of over 874,000.

In recent months, municipal authorities began registering land in east Jerusalem to allow for the legal construction of Palestinian homes there.