Bethlehem - Ma'an - United States Embassy staff sent a sharply worded letter to Israel's Foreign Ministry on Monday, condemning the country's decision to evict over 50 Palestinian families from their homes in East Jerusalem on Sunday.

The diplomats also said a "high-level protest" would be communicated to Israel later in the day in response to decision to evict the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood families to make room for settlers.

As US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton "has stated previously, the eviction of families and demolition of homes in East Jerusalem is not in keeping with Israeli obligations under the road map," State Department spokesman Robert Wood said in a statement on Sunday.

"We urge that the government of Israel and municipal officials refrain from provocative actions in East Jerusalem, including home demolitions and evictions," Wood added. "Unilateral actions taken by either party cannot prejudge the outcome of negotiations and will not be recognized by the international community."

During the eviction, attempts by American and United Nations personnel to investigate were rebuffed by police on the scene, while CNN filmed Israeli forces dismissing a US Consulate official who had just arrived.

Ma'an's correspondent, who was also on the scene early Sunday, reported that Israeli forces prevented journalists from entering the area, and that some 20 international solidarity activists were arrested there. They were later released, according to Israeli news reports.

Police were filmed harassing and shoving Al-Jazeera reporters, who later said they overheard the newly arrived settlers pestering members of one of the two newly homeless families, saying, "This is Israel; you're not in Palestine any more."

A large unit of armed Israeli police and soldiers stormed the two homes while the families were sleeping on Sunday morning. The Palestinians were forced out on the street at gunpoint around 5am, and their belongings were soon removed and dumped several blocks away.

"They blew up the doors with small charges, walked in, and dragged us out like sacks," said Nasser Gawi, according to the Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz. "We are 38 people in the family. Now the skies are our blanket and the earth is our bed."

"We were dragged out of our beds, and told to wait outside," said Majhad Ganun. "They brought a truck and loaded everything we had on it. They took it somewhere, and didn't tell us where. I'm going to sleep on the pavement, we have no place to go."

An Israeli spokesman said the eviction followed a court ruling that the Palestinians' houses actually belong to a Jewish settler group, while both the family of refugees from the 1948 war and the United Nations insisted they have owned the residences since before Israel's existence, and for several generations.

The British Consulate, which is located in the same area, slammed the move. "Israel’s claim that the imposition of extremist Jewish settlers into this ancient Arab neighbourhood is a matter for the courts or the municipality is entirely unacceptable," it said in a statement. "Their actions are incompatible with the Israeli professed desire for peace. We urge Israel not to allow extremists to set the agenda."

In a statement the UN special coordinator for Middle East peace, Robert Serry, deplored "today's totally unacceptable actions by Israel... to allow settlers to take possession of these properties." He added that the move violated the International Quartet's calls for Israel to "refrain from provocative acts in East Jerusalem."

Head Palestine Liberation Organization negotiator Saeb Erekat strongly condemned the move, as well, in a statement on Sunday. "Tonight, while these new settlers from abroad will be accommodating themselves and their belongings in these Palestinian houses, 19 newly homeless children will have nowhere to sleep."

"Israel is once again showing its utter failure to respect international law, the Road Map and the most basic moral and humanitarian principles," Erekat said. "While Israeli authorities have promised the American administration that home demolitions, home evictions and others provocations against Palestinian Jerusalemites would be stopped, what we’ve seen on the ground is completely the opposite."

"Home demolitions, evictions and ID revocations are just a small part of the daily repertoire of Israeli policies carried out against Palestinian Christians and Muslims in occupied East Jerusalem," Erekat said.