Palestinian’s threat to set himself on fire over eviction

A PALESTINIAN man yesterday climbed on top of his house and threatened to set himself on fire as his family face eviction, prompting a stand-off with Israeli police.

Mohammed Salhiya carried a gas canister up to the roof and promised to ignite it unless Israel abandoned the eviction process in Sheikh Jarrah, in East Jerusalem. The Salhiya family’s home has been under threat of eviction since 2017, when the land it sits on was allocated by Jerusalem’s municipality for a special needs school.

Last year, when a court in Jerusalem approved the eviction, the family appealed and is still awaiting a final ruling. The eviction order itself has not been frozen. “We’ve been in this home since the 1950s,” Salhiya family member Abdallah Ikermawi said from the roof, according to the AFP news agency.

The Salhiya family are among hundreds of Palestinians facing eviction from Sheikh Jarrah as part of a process that they claim is designed to replace Palestinian residents with Jewish settlers.

Israeli officials say that in the specific case of the Salhiyas, the land is not being given to Jewish residents.