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- The Sheikh Jarrah controversy, which has been described as a "property/real estate dispute" by the Israeli government and its supporters, and as an "expulsion", "displacement" or "ethnic cleansing" event and a matter of international law by Palestinians and their supporters, is a long-running legal and political dispute between Palestinians and Israelis over the ownership of certain properties and housing units in Sheikh Jarrah, East Jerusalem. The evictions are considered a contributory cause of the 2021 Israel–Palestine crisis. It has been described as a microcosm of the Israeli–Palestinian disputes over land since 1948, with academic Kristen Alff noting "To describe dispossessions in Sheikh Jarrah as a "real estate" quarrel conceals the true history of land ownership in the regions – which is complicated, disputed and rarely decided in favor of Palestinians." In East Jerusalem, Israel's laws allow Jews to file claims over property held prior to 1948, but reject Palestinian claims over property that they owned prior to 1948 in Israel proper. According to Middle East Eye, the dispute is part of the Israeli government's Holy Basin settlement strategy. Aryeh King, a deputy mayor of Jerusalem and one of the founders of the Ma'ale HaZeitim settler compound, told The New York Times that the eviction of Palestinian families was "of course" part of a municipal strategy to create "layers of Jews" throughout East Jerusalem. Many Palestinian families in East Jerusalem have been affected by "forced relocation processes or been involved in lengthy legal procedures to revoke an eviction order". The property in Sheikh Jarrah in dispute includes the adjacent Shimon HaTzadik/Karm Al-Ja’ouni and Um Haroun (former Nahalat Shimon) compounds to the East and West respectively of the Nablus Road. In the former, the Palestinian residents of Sheikh Jarrah were refugees who received plots of land in a UNRWA lottery, relinquishing in return their refugee documents and accompanying rights. They have no right under Israeli law to repossess their pre-1948 homes in Haifa, Sarafand and Jaffa. The Palestinian view is that given Sheikh Jarrah's location beyond the Green Line or Israel proper, Israeli courts have no jurisdiction over land disputes in what is occupied territory according to international law, and that the displacement of people in occupied territory is a war crime under the Rome Statute. The United Nations Human Rights Office has said that as Sheikh Jarrah is in East Jerusalem, which is considered occupied territory, international humanitarian law prohibits the confiscation of private property and evictions of Palestinian families could constitute war crimes. (en)
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