As part of the worldwide day of action against house demolitions in Occupied East Jeruslaem, Pro-Palestinian activists yesterday set up protest tents outside the Israeli embassy in London, and in Parliament square. Overseas, campaigners set up six tents outside the Israeli embassy in Copenhagen ( http://palsolidarity.org/2009/07/7624), and in Chicago activists raised 88 banners across the city ( http://palsolidarity.org/2009/07/7629). A press conference was held at the Sheikh Jarrah protest tent in Jerusalem.

Tents have become a powerful symbol of the struggle of Palestinian people living in occupied East Jerusalem. They have been set up as centres of protest in neighbourhoods threatened by numerous eviction and demolition orders; part of Israel’s wider policy to ethnically cleanse Jerusalem of its Palestinian population. In the neighborohood of Sheikh Jarrah 28 families are living under the threat of house evictions; which are part of a plan to implant a new Jewish settlement in the area, close to the Old City. After the Al Kurd family had been forcibly removed from their home in November 2008, it is now the turn of the al-Ghawe and Hannoun families to face imminent eviction, while others are awaiting further eviction orders.

In Silwan, 88 homes in the al Bustan quarter are facing immediate destruction in order to create space for a planned national park. A total of 1500 residents would be displaced if this plan went ahead. In Beit Hanina, Al Tur, Ath Thuri and Wadi Yasul, a combined total of more than 3,600 persons are affected by pending demolition orders – this includes two apartment buildings in Al Abbasiyya, housing 34 families.