An Israeli police raid on a well-known chain of Palestinian bookshops in occupied East Jerusalem and the detention of their owners has shocked many people in the city's cultural, journalistic and diplomatic communities, who have described it as heavy handed and unjustified.

Israeli police accused the bookstore that focuses on Palestinian identity and the Israeli-Arab conflicts of "incitement and support for terrorism."

The police said the stores were selling books that supported terrorism, and that two of their owners had been arrested. A brother of the owners decried the raid as “political persecution.”

Dozens of people gathered Monday outside a Jerusalem court to protest the arrest of two Palestinian booksellers in the city's east.

Israeli police have raided a long-established Palestinian-owned bookstore in east Jerusalem, detaining the owners and confiscating books about the decades-long conflict

Israeli police raided two Palestinian bookstores in occupied east Jerusalem on Sunday, confiscating books and arresting one of the owners and his nephew, according to their family members.

Raid alarms foreign diplomats as court keeps booksellers in custody for another day on charge of disrupting public order by selling texts of 'incitement and support for terrorism'

Tens of thousands of Palestinian refugees in Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem were set to lose education, healthcare and other services provided by U.N. agency UNRWA as an Israeli ban on the organisation takes effect on Thursday.

In raiding the Educational Bookshop, police targeted a high-profiled location known to visitors from across the globe. It is a common stop on the itineraries of American Jewish groups visiting east Jerusalem, and sells coffee along with its stacks of literature.

Israeli authorities have seized any books relating to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from the Educational Bookshop in East Jerusalem and detained its owners amid allegations they were “selling books containing incitement and support for terrorism.