(MENAFN- The Peninsula) The stench of tear gas, burnt tyres and "skunk" riot control liquid fills the air in an east Jerusalem district shaken by months of clashes between Palestinian youths and Israeli forces.
Along with the foul odours there is a sense of despair in Issawiya, a neighbourhood of 20,000 people where a lack of prospects for young Palestinians fuels frustration and violence.
"The youths here have no future. The town has no future," local council member Mohammed Khader Abu Al Hummus said.
Issawiya, which lies in a valley east of the Hebrew University on Mount Scopus, has been the scene of near-daily clashes since July, when Jewish extremists burned alive a Palestinian teenager in revenge for the killing of three Israeli teenagers in the West Bank. Then a 50-day war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas killed nearly 2,200 Palestinians, almost a quarter of them children, as east Jerusalem was rocked in protest. Local activist Raed Abu Riyaal said that since July, 150 youths - including minors - had been arrested for violent clashes with police.
Fearing a wider outbreak, police have combined forces with the Jerusalem municipality to crack down, fining residents for previously ignored misdemeanours, from parking and traffic to business and construction violations. But far from quelling tensions, the Israeli measures - along with the police closure of three of the district's four entrances with concrete blocks - are perceived as unjust punishment for the youth uprising.
"This is collective punishment," Abu Riyaal said, noting the difficulties the town's 3,000 youths now face on their way to high school. Residents have appealed to Israel's supreme court against the closure, with the state due to file its response by Wednesday.
A surveillance balloon, recently launched by the Jerusalem municipality, loomed in its fixed spot overhead.
A senior policeman was telling local leaders in Arabic that parents were responsible for their children and they must keep them at home to prevent clashes.
Residents of the district had traditionally been farmers, but Israeli expropriations of lands for nearby settlements and roads have reduced their lands from 3,100 acres (1,250 hectares) to 500 on which they live.
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