in this Arab neighborhood of East Jerusalem, residents are “surrounded by the police”

In Tsur Baher, where the attackers of the attack on Thursday, November 30 came from, the residents are surrounded by the police. They denounce collective punishment on the part of the Jewish state.

This attack shattered the truce between Hamas and Israel. In an Orthodox Jewish neighborhood of Jerusalem, Thursday, November 30, two Palestinians opened fire on passers-by, killing four and wounding five. An attack claimed by Hamas and carried out by two brothers from the Arab neighborhood of Tsur Baher in East Jerusalem. Since then, the entire neighborhood has been under close surveillance, subject to very strong police pressure.

To reach Tsur Baher, you have to wind through the maze of roads in East Jerusalem and avoid the concrete blocks that prevent access. When we arrive, the police are deployed at every intersection. And in the middle is Adam’s hardware store.

“For three days I have not been able to take my children to school in the old town because my neighborhood is closedhe says. No customers come into the store because we are surrounded by the police, they stop anyone in the neighborhood, they search them and fine them.”

It’s been like that, Adam assures us, since Thursday’s attack. According to him, the police are punishing the neighborhood’s 50,000 residents for the actions of two of them. “Increase the pressure, and you will trigger an explosion! Look at Gaza, for example: the Israelis made it a prison for 20 years, the pressure built up until the explosion!”he denounces.

Forced destruction is increasing

Two blocks from Adam’s hardware store, police cars move away from Abou Ahmad’s house, whose gate and top floor are gutted. “They entered the house and ordered us to evacuate the entire buildinghe explains. After we got to the side, they destroyed the front gate of the house, look. They brought in a big backhoe loader and by destroying the top floor, they damaged the apartments below!”

Officially, the top floor had been built illegally, like tens of thousands of other homes in Arab neighborhoods where Israeli authorities refuse to issue building permits.

Forced destructions, such as that of Abu Ahmad’s house, have increased in East Jerusalem since October 7. The old man denounces a dangerous amalgam: “My son was a member of the Palestinian parliament from Jerusalem. He was elected on the ‘Change and Reform’ list led by Hamas.”

If your son was part of Hamas, then for them the whole family supports Hamas. And they take revenge on us, as they did on the house.

And in the Middle East, when we touch houses, we touch one of the sensitive points of the conflict. In 2021, a previous wave of house destruction in East Jerusalem, led by the ruling Israeli nationalists, triggered more than a month of clashes and 270 deaths.