Izzedine, however, is comparatively lucky. He is still able to get into the house he was born in, and plans to repair it and stay there. His brother, whose house, right next door, was also vandalised, is locked out. When he tried to re-enter, settlers brandishing machine-guns appeared within minutes. His house, like the Sharawi family house last week, has been annexed to the settlement.
'It's like the Ku Klux Klan moving into an African-American city,' says Mark Frey from the Christian Peacemaker team, a group of eight volunteers who live in and patrol the area, monitoring, reporting and, if possible, intervening to calm situations. 'People ask us, 'Why don't you try and do reconciliation work?' But the settlers don't want reconciliation. Their presence here is a hostile act, a very hostile takeover.
One of the settlements is literally built on top of the Arab market. The ground floor is market stalls; the first, second, third and fourth, a settlement. The settlers used to throw rubbish on to the Palestinians shopping in the street below. They put up wire meshing for protection, so the settlers started dropping bottles of urine instead.
Some 2500 Israeli soldiers are stationed in the old city, ostensibly to keep some kind of order. Watchtowers have been positioned on the roofs of Palestinian homes, guns bearing down, and miniature checkpoints are dotted throughout the winding, cobbled streets in an attempt to keep Arabs and Jews apart.
'It's like the Ku Klux Klan moving into an African-American city,' says Mark Frey from the Christian Peacemaker team, a group of eight volunteers who live in and patrol the area, monitoring, reporting and, if possible, intervening to calm situations. 'People ask us, 'Why don't you try and do reconciliation work?' But the settlers don't want reconciliation. Their presence here is a hostile act, a very hostile takeover.
One of the settlements is literally built on top of the Arab market. The ground floor is market stalls; the first, second, third and fourth, a settlement. The settlers used to throw rubbish on to the Palestinians shopping in the street below. They put up wire meshing for protection, so the settlers started dropping bottles of urine instead.
Some 2500 Israeli soldiers are stationed in the old city, ostensibly to keep some kind of order. Watchtowers have been positioned on the roofs of Palestinian homes, guns bearing down, and miniature checkpoints are dotted throughout the winding, cobbled streets in an attempt to keep Arabs and Jews apart.