EU States At UNSC 'Deeply Troubled' By Israel's Evictions In Sheikh Jarrah - Irish Envoy

UNITED NATIONS (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 20th January, 2022) The European Union member states at the UN Security Council expressed serious concern about Israel's evictions and destruction of the home of a Palestinian family in the East Jerusalem's neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah and called on both sides to avoid any unilateral actions, Irish Ambassador to the United Nations Geraldine Byrne Nason said on Wednesday.

Earlier in the day, Israeli police said it conducted an operation to forcibly evict residents from a building at the territory reserved for a school for children with special needs in eastern Jerusalem. Several people were detained on suspicion of violating the court ruling and breaching the public order.

"We are deeply troubled by the evictions and demolitions which took place in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood," Byrne Nason said in a joint statement with France and former UN Security Council's member Estonia. "These actions undermine the prospects for peace and risk increasing violence."

Byrne Nason called on Israel to not proceed with the new plan to construct hundreds of housing units in Jerusalem as it will further undermine the territorial contiguity of a future Palestinian state.

"We call on both parties to refrain from unilateral actions that increase tensions and undermine the two-state solution and call upon them to build on steps taken in recent months to improve cooperation and restore a political horizon," she said.

The conflict over the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood led to an upsurge of violence and ethnic skirmishes between Jewish and Arab residents in mixed cities last spring, which further escalated into the largest military standoff between Israel and the Gaza Strip in May of 2021.