The Protection Gap in Sheikh Jarrah For decades, Israel has been attempting to displace Palestinians living in Sheikh Jarrah, a neighborhood in Jerusalem, after Israeli courts declared that a Jewish organization in fact owned the land on which the neighborhood was built. This attack is carried out as part of Israel’s broader campaign to ethnically cleanse Jerusalem of Palestinians and “secure the future of Jerusalem as a Jewish capital for the Jewish people”.417 Over 550 Palestinians in Sheikh Jarrah are at risk of a second displacement, given that they are also 1948 refugees who relocated to the neighborhood after the Nakba. Israel is seeking to replace these Palestinian residents with colonizers, and to use their lands and properties for the benefit of various settler-colonial organizations such as Elad and Ateret Cohanim. These organizations specialize in using Israel’s colonial laws to file ‘eviction lawsuits’ against Palestinian property owners in order to control Palestinian estates through complex purchases that do not involve the actual Palestinian owners of the property.418 To justify its blatant violations of international law, Israel has employed its colonial-apartheid courts to effect the forcible displacement of Sheikh Jarrah residents via a long-winded, bureaucratic process. The people of Sheikh Jarrah are thus forced to live in an unending situation of precarity, without legal protection as IDPs and under continuous harassment from Israeli soldiers and colonizer ‘settlers’, with any act of resistance being subject to violent punishment. 416 OCHA, Masafer Yatta (n 144). Arieh King, quoted in Joel Beinin, ‘Sheikh Jarrah: Epicentre of Israel's plan for Jewish supremacy in Jerusalem’ (Middle East Eye, 20 May 2021) <https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/israel-palestine-sheikh-jarrah-judaise-jerusalem> accessed 3 October 2022. 418 OCHA, ‘Palestinian family evicted from its home in East Jerusalem’ (OCHA, 10 December 2020) <https://www. ochaopt.org/content/palestinian-family-evicted-its-home-east-jerusalem> accessed 3 October 2022. 417 91 Chapter Palestinians living in Masafer Yatta, a collection of 19 small villages and homesteads in the South Al-Khalil Hills, have been under the threat of forcible transfer since the Israeli military declared the area to be ‘Firing Zone 918’, a closed military zone, in the 1980s. Today, around 1,150 Palestinians live in Masafer Yatta, comprising 215 households. The Israeli High Court of Justice (HCJ) recognized in a 1999 injunction that Palestinians had been living on the land before it was declared to be a firing zone, and therefore could not lawfully be evicted. However, in May 2022, after the Israeli military sought to expel all Palestinian residents under the pretext that the area be used for military training exercises, the HCJ rescinded the injunction and stated that there were no legal barriers to the evictions going ahead. Dozens of homes, particularly in the villages of Khirbet al-Fakhiet and Mirkez, have since been demolished. Israeli colonizers living in the nearby colonies such as Mitzpe Yair and Maon frequently terrorize Palestinian residents under the visible protection of Israeli soldiers. Efforts of local activists and humanitarian organisations to protect and develop basic infrastructure in the area are hampered by Israeli authorities, who have imposed blanket ‘stop work’ orders on all Palestinian construction, and simultaneously refuse to issue building permits. All four schools in the area, as well as all four medical clinics, have been issued with demolition orders. In June 2022, Israeli live-fire military exercises started in Masafer Yatta, putting the lives and property of Palestinian residents living in the area in serious danger. It is clear that in Masafer Yatta, the Israeli colonial courts, the military, and the colonial settler movement are acting in unison to create a coercive environment with the aim of precipitating the forcible transfer of Palestinians from their ancestral lands.416 3 The Protection Gap in Masafer Yatta