Top Palestinian activist Mona-el-Kurd arrested by Israeli police

Israeli police on Sunday arrested a prominent activist campaigning against the threatened expulsion of Palestinian families from their homes in the Israeli-annexed east al-Quds neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah.

Police took Mona el-Kurd, 23, away for questioning and left a summons for her twin brother, Muhammed, their father told AFP a day after police had also detained an Al Jazeera journalist covering a demonstration nearby.

The family’s lawyer, Nasser Odeh, said police charged Mona el-Kurd with "acts that disturb peace and order" and "riotous acts". In footage widely shared on social media, she was shown handcuffed and taken by officers out of her family’s home in Sheikh Jarrah, whose struggle has crystalized Palestinian anger over Israel’s illegal settlement movement.

Protests in Sheikh Jarrah spread early last month into the city’s al-Aqsa mosque compound, sparking a crackdown by Israeli security forces against Palestinians that further inflamed tensions.

Hamas, the Islamist group that controls the Palestinian enclave of Gaza, responded by launching volleys of rockets towards Israel on May 10, triggering an 11-day genocidal assault on Gaza by the Jewish state.

While Palestinians and their backers see the issue as a microcosm of the wider conflict over land, illegal Jewish settlers and their supporters have labelled it a property dispute to be decided by Israeli courts. The el-Kurd twins, whose family is currently under threat of losing their home, have led an active protest movement on the streets and online.

They have gained more than 180,000 Twitter follower, and more than half a million on Instagram, using the hashtags #SheikhJarrah and #SaveSheikhJarrah to bring their neighbourhood’s plight global attention.