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Jerusalem mayor told to ‘evict Silwan settlers

JERUSALEM - Israel’s attorney-general has asked the Jerusalem city council to implement a 2007 court order evicting Jewish settlers from a building in east Jerusalem, the justice ministry said on Wednesday.

Ministry spokesman Moshe Cohen said Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein had written to the municipality and the city police over repeated delays in carrying out the eviction order.

“He told them there is no alternative and asked them to implement the order,” Cohen told AFP.

Right-wing Mayor Nir Barkat has balked at carrying out the order against the illegally built seven-story settler home while he is being pressed to freeze demolition orders on about 200 Palestinian homes built without permits in the same Jerusalem neighbourhood of Silwan.

On Tuesday, he said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had prevented city authorities from demolishing houses in annexed east Jerusalem in recent months.

“At the moment, the prime minister’s bureau and police are not permitting the demolition of homes,” Barkat’s spokesman quoted him as saying.

Netanyahu’s office has not commented on Barkat’s remarks, which came as the premier sought a way to revive peace talks with the Palestinians, which broke down over Israeli settlement construction.

Netanyahu has been subjected to heavy international pressure, especially from key ally the United States, for authorising building projects for Jews in largely Arab east Jerusalem.

The Palestinians see east Jerusalem as the capital of their promised state. They oppose any attempts to extend Israel’s control over the part of the city, which was captured in the 1967 Six Day War and annexed shortly afterward in a move unrecognised by the rest of the world.

Israel considers the whole of Jerusalem its “eternal and indivisible” capital.

Weinstein’s predecessor also wrote to city hall insisting that the eviction go ahead and, in February, State Prosecutor Moshe Lador accused Barkat of deliberately stalling.

Barkat responded by saying he would comply with the court judgement under “the most vigorous protest.”

Many Palestinians in east Jerusalem risk having their homes razed because they were built or enlarged without the necessary permits, which are nearly impossible to obtain from the Israeli authorities.