Wednesday night: Police arrested seven Jews, evicted 30 others, and uprooted 30 fruit trees from Jewish property in eastern Jerusalem - while allowing an Arab squatter to remain there.
The property is located just outside Jerusalem's Pisgat Ze'ev neighborhood, towards Maaleh Adumim. Aryeh King, an activist working to ensure that Jewish lands in the capital remain Jewish, said he spent the night there together with several dozen friends.
The would-be residents have named the area Shaar HaMizrach, Gate of the East.
"The property is registered in the land registry (tabu) as belonging to a Jew," King said afterwards, "just like any other Jewish property in any other part of Jerusalem. It is defined as agricultural property, on which it is permitted to live. Yet this morning, Border Guard police and regular police arrived and threw us off the property, and also uprooted the fruit trees that we planted - while at the same time, they allow an Arab squatter to remain on the property."
This was the second attempt to settle the area in the past month, and King says a third attempt will be made in the coming days. "We will not rest nor remain silent until we are allowed to live here," King promises.
"The police in this case are simply a tool in the hands of a small politician named Avi Dichter [the Minister for Public Security, who oversees the police - ed.], who has simply decided to close off a part of Jerusalem to Jews. There must be a public outcry, by the mayor, and the mayoral candidates, and everyone to whom Jerusalem is precious."
"If we don't stop this now, then it can happen to any other part of eastern Jerusalem very soon," King warns.