The police came for them at dawn on a Sunday, heavily armed, wearing helmets and riot shields as they broke down the metal doors of the houses and dragged the two Palestinian families out onto the streets.
It was over in minutes, the Hanoun and the Ghawi families evicted from what had been their homes for the past five decades, and thrown onto the pavement before the sun had fully risen.
Within hours young, religious Israeli settlers had been moved in, guarded by dozens of armed police and their own private armed security guards.
These streets of Sheikh Jarrah, in East Jerusalem, have become the new front line in Israel‘s complex battle to extend its control over this divided city; their latest victims 17 members of the Hanoun family and 38 from the Ghawi family.
