RAMALLAH: On Tuesday morning Israeli settlers entered, occupied, and took over a Palestinian home in East Jerusalem, Grassroots Al-Quds Network confirmed. The home is located in the Al-Farouk neighborhood on the southeast outskirts of the city. The settlers, members of the Elad Organization, were accompanied by security guards when they arrived early Tuesday morning, Israeli daily Haaretz reported. They entered the home and changed the locks. The home owner is accused of building illegally and not paying recurring fines. The owner, however, maintains that he paid all of the fines in question on time and in their entirety. Another home was taken over by Elad settlers in 2010. The occupation of the Al-Farouk home comes at a particularly tense time in East Jerusalem, as Israel gears up to build an addition 3,000 homes in East Jerusalem and strategically sensitive parts of the occupied West Bank as a way of punishing the Palestinian Authority for successfully securing an upgrade vote in the United Nations General Assembly last Thursday. Israeli forces arrived in another East Jerusalem neighborhood, A-Tur, with bulldozers intending to demolish a home located on what Israel claims is the property of a national park.
