Sheikh Jarrah

Sheikh Jarrah (Arabic: الشيخ جراح, romanized: Shaykh Jarrāḥ, Hebrew: שייח׳ ג׳ראח) is a predominantly Palestinian neighborhood in East Jerusalem, two kilometres (1+1⁄4 miles) north of the Old City, on the road to Mount Scopus. It received its name from the 13th-century tomb of Hussam al-Din al-Jarrahi, a physician of Saladin, located within its vicinity. The modern neighborhood was founded in 1865 and gradually became a residential center of Jerusalem's Muslim elite, particularly the al-Husayni family. After the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, it became under Jordanian-held East Jerusalem, bordering the no-man's land area with Israeli-held West Jerusalem until Israel occupied the neighborhood in the 1967 Six-Day War. Most of its present Palestinian population is said to come from refugees expelled from Jerusalem's Talbiya neighbourhood in 1948. Certain properties are subject to legal proceedings based on the application of two Israeli land and property laws, the Absentee Property Law and the Legal and Administrative Matters Law of 1970. Israeli nationalist organizations have sought to acquire property in the area since 1967. For five decades, several Israeli settlements have been built in and adjacent to Sheikh Jarrah. The area, effectively annexed by Israel, is a part of the occupied Palestinian territories under international law. Israel enforces its laws there and the legal proceedings in these and other similar cases in East Jerusalem, are based on the application of two Israeli laws, the Absentee Property Law and the Legal and Administrative Matters Law of 1970.