Why Israel is so desperate to silence #SaveSheikhJarrah

The grassroots campaign united Palestinians in resistance and turned the world’s attention to Israel’s occupation.

Over the last month and a half, we have been witnessing what many are calling a new Palestinian uprising. It is being dubbed by some as the “Intifada of Unity” because it brought Palestinians all across colonised Palestine together in resistance. Indeed, they are resisting and demonstrating against settler colonialism and its manifestations in unison across various geographies, from Jerusalem to Gaza. The catalyst for this new uprising was the Israeli regime’s threat to expel Palestinian families from their homes in Sheikh Jarrah – the now famous Palestinian neighbourhood in occupied East Jerusalem. Palestinians living in Sheikh Jarrah, like countless other Palestinian communities, have been facing the threat of expulsion for decades. They have been engaged in a long legal battle with the Israeli regime to hold on to their homes and to stop, or at least slow down, the Israeli attempts to ethnically cleanse and completely Judaise Jerusalem.