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Israelis protest over 'fascist' Jerusalem settlements
At least 15 protesters were arrested yesterday as several hundred left-wing Israelis held their biggest demonstration yet against demolitions and evictions of east Jerusalem Palestinians designed to make way for Jewish settlers.
Police moved in to force back the noisy but largely peaceful protest in Sheikh Jarrah, the inner-city district that has rapidly become the main flashpoint of the struggle to prevent further government and local authority-approved inroads by settler groups in the city.
Organisers of the demonstration, which had been kept behind a police cordon at the entrance to one of the neighbourhood's residential streets, said that two Palestinians had been injured by stone-throwing settlers further along the road and beyond the barrier.
Continued settlement in the inner districts of east Jerusalem is regarded by the moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas as a central obstacle to resuming negotiations with Israel. Mr Abbas resisted fresh pressure to re-enter the talks during a three-hour meeting yesterday with US Middle East Envoy George Mitchell.