JERUSALEM, March 29 (UPI) -- About 150 people marched through East Jerusalem Saturday in a protest against the demolition of homes in the largely Arab neighborhood.
Marchers carried signs that read "Jews and Arabs against home demolitions," Ynetnews reported. Some of the marchers charged that Nir Barkat, who recently took office as mayor of Jerusalem, began planning demolitions as soon as he was inaugurated.
"Under these ruins, you can still find the furniture of a whole family, with five daughters, that has no other home," one protester declared when the march halted at a house taken down two weeks ago. "This is an act by Barkat, who in his first day on the job already decided to raze homes, and is going to continue razing homes in the area."
East Jerusalem, with a large Palestinian population, was reunited with Jerusalem after the 1967 war. Jewish Israeli leaders insist the city will never be divided again, while Palestinian leaders say East Jerusalem should be the capital of a Palestinian state.
