JERUSALEM: Israeli settlers forcefully took over 25 apartments in Arab east Jerusalem on Tuesday, residents and Palestinian leaders said, with the new occupants claiming they had legitimately bought the properties.

The incident led to clashes between Arab residents and Jewish settlers in the Silwan neighbourhood, which is right outside Jerusalem’s Old City, near the flashpoint Al-Aqsa mosque compound.

It came after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas traded inflammatory accusations at the UN General Assembly in New York, making the prospects of peace look even bleaker.

Mohammed al-Khayat, whose family owns three apartments in one Silwan building, said settlers had broken the locks on empty properties and then changed them.

A police spokeswoman said clashes flared later when one Palestinian man tried to get into one of the buildings.

She said the properties belonged to settlers, who had presented documents proving they had purchased them.

Elad, a hardline settler organisation that seeks to increase Jewish settlement in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem, said that a company called Kendall Finance had purchased the properties.

Published in Dawn, October 1st , 2014