A controversial Israeli court hearing on plans to evict a group of Palestinians in East Jerusalem was postponed on Sunday after the attorney-general asked to defer the case.
The Israeli Supreme Court was due on Monday to hear an appeal against the evictions in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood in the city.
But Attorney-General Avichai Mandelblit’s office said the court had agreed to accept a future submission from him.
His intervention reverses an earlier Israeli government pledge to stay out of what it described as a “private property dispute”.
A lower court had backed Jewish settlers’ claim to the land on which the Palestinian homes are located.
The Supreme Court will schedule a new hearing within 30 days.
Israel captured East Jerusalem in a 1967 war and subsequently annexed the whole city as its capital, but its claim is not internationally recognised.
Palestinians want East Jerusalem to be the capital of their future state in Gaza and the West Bank.
The Sheikh Jarrah case had fuelled tensions in Jerusalem, which has seen violent clashes between Israeli police and Palestinian protesters in recent days.
Much of the violence centred in the Old City around the Temple Mount, also known as Haram esh-Sharif, a holy site for both Muslims and Jews.
