‘Israeli’ Occupation Releases Sheikh Jarrah Activists after Hours-long Arrests

By Staff, Agencies

Activists Muna al-Kurd and Mohammed al-Kurd, who have been at the forefront of a campaign to stop the expulsions of Palestinians from occupied East al-Quds’ Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, have been released from ‘Israeli’ custody several hours after they were arrested by the occupation’s police.

“No matter what they do to terrorize and frighten us, no number of arrests will scare us off,” Muna told reporters after her release on Sunday.

“We will remain in our homes and we will continue to defend our land that we were born and raised on,” she said.

Her brother Mohammed told reporters: “We are not afraid, we are not intimidated, we are going to continue to speak out against all of these injustices, and we’re going to continue to protect our homes.”

Earlier, Nabil al-Kurd, father of the 23-year-old twins, said Muna was arrested after police raided their home in Sheikh Jarrah, while Mohammed had turned himself in at a police station after receiving a summons.

“They want to remove us [from al-Quds] … but we are here,” Nabil al-Kurd told reporters.

“The weapons of the Palestinians are the camera, and the words – whereas the ‘Israeli’ army is heavily armed.”

The Palestinian Red Crescent Society said 10 people were injured when ‘Israeli’ forces fired rubber bullets and stun grenades at protesters outside a police station who were calling for the release of the activists.

Last March, the ‘Israeli’ district court in occupied East al-Quds ratified orders for six Palestinian families – the al-Kurds included – in Sheikh Jarrah to vacate their homes in order to make way for settlers. The same court also ruled that another seven families should leave their homes by August 1.

A Zionist court is due to announce its verdict in the case.

The protests in Sheikh Jarrah spread early last month to the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, the third holiest site in Islam, sparking a crackdown by ‘Israeli’ security forces against Palestinian worshippers. The storming of Al-Aqsa by Zionist occupation forces caused global outrage.

The ‘Israeli’ apartheid entity’s crackdown in occupied East al-Quds and the raid on Al-Aqsa prompted Palestinian resistance movements in Gaza to fire rockets on the ‘Israeli’-occupied territories after Zionist forces ignored a deadline to vacate the mosque.

The Tel Aviv regime’s military launched an 11-day military assault on Gaza that left more than 250 Palestinians dead, including 66 children.