Jerusalem - Ma'an - Israeli forces detained 20 protesters during a demonstration in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah early Friday evening, onlookers said. Among the eight arrestees was Yossi Sarid, former head of the Israeli Metetz Party.
The protesters were accused of attempting to break into Palestinian houses taken over by Israeli settlers in the past few months, the Hebrew-language daily Yedioth Ahronoth reported.
Last Friday, Israeli police violently suppressed a demonstration against the eviction of Palestinian families from their homes in Sheikh Jarrah. Seventeen of them spent the weekend in jail but were released after the Magistrate Court in Jerusalem ruled there were no legal grounds for the arrests.
"The police are misusing their power and distorting the law so as to collaborate with the dangerous project of Judaicizing East Jerusalem," said the Israeli peace group Anarchists Against the Wall.
"Together we will show the Jerusalem Police that they cannot silence a legitimate protest with obstruction and false arrests," the group said in a statement.
In response to last week's violence, demonstrators said they planned to make Friday's protest "the largest in the history of the struggle in Sheikh Jarrah." Under the banner, "No to Eviction, No to Suppression," the activists protested against what they termed "the settler enterprise in the neighborhood."
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