Ibrahim Araj News Today

On a grey metal gate that Israel built in the Palestinian village of Walaja hangs a biting sign: "Living behind this damned door and this spiteful wall is your brother and your son Omar Essa Hajajlah."

Carved up over decades, the village of Walaja sits partly in the occupied West Bank and partly in Jerusalem. Palestinians say this type of fragmentation undermines prospects for a state.

On March 30, Israel’s Supreme Court postponed a critical hearing on the fate of al-Walaja, a Palestinian village along the southern edge of Jerusalem. The move was praised as a victory by residents, and put off the threat of demolition, for now.

© Mussa Qawasma/Reuters A Palestinian man cut off from his family by the Israeli wall, looks out of his house at the Jewish settlement of Gilo, in Al-Walaja. February 18, 2020. For decades, a Palestinian village on the southern tip of Jerusalem has lived on and cultivated the land. But a series of recent efforts by Israel is not only threatening their way of life but potentially displacing them from their homes. On January 25, the Jerusalem District Planning Committee rejected the residents of...