Roadblocks upend Palestinian family's life
Ahmad Abu Diab's walk home from school is an anxiety-inducing obstacle course. First comes an Israeli road block.
Sometimes they let me through, sometimes they don't, he says.
Then a protest camp in solidarity with Palestinian families at risk of eviction, like his own.
Ahmad lives in Sheikh Jarrah, on a quiet side street with checkpoints at either end.
As the eviction crisisunfolds under the gaze of the world's media, even playing with friends has become a trial for the eleven year-old.
"I want to play with them but I can't. The police won't let them enter because the neighborhood is closed. The settlers get to play with each other but we don't."
He's talking about the Jewish settlers who've moved into the street. Israeli police say the roadblocks and restrictions are to prevent friction between them and the Palestinians.
For Saleh Abu Diab, the father of Ahmad and his four siblings, their presence is a constant worry.
"Since the settlers entered the neighborhood, our whole lives have changed, everything changed, because we've started to live in fear and worry all the time. The kids are afraid of the settlers when they go to sleep at night."
The Abu Diabs could lose their home. Settlers are seeking possession of it and others in a court case that has drawn world attention and near-daily protests.
Saleh takes part in the protests, and says he's been arrested more than 15 times for his activism.
In October, an Israeli court ruled in the settlers' favor. They say the Palestinian families are living on land that used to belong to Jews in territory that Israel captured in a 1967 war, and later annexed in a move not recognized internationally.
For 15-year-old Tala Abu Diab, life stopped being normal a long time ago.
"This has really affected me psychologically and everything around me. I only see my friends outside the neighborhood and they used to come here, we would have fun and stay up late but now they cannot come in and I cannot leave and if I leave they harass me and when I come back they harass me, it is very hard."
In May, as protesters came to show solidarity with the Abu Diabs and other families, Israeli armed police raided their home to arrest a protester who'd come inside.
The Palestinians have appealed the Sheikh Jarrah ruling and on August 2, Israel's Supreme Court is expected to hear their case.
