Since October 20, 2025, Israeli forces have cordoned off the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah so Jewish worshippers could pray at the alleged tomb of Jewish high priest Simeon the Righteous. Streets have been blocked, iron barriers erected, and throngs of police have been deployed across the neighborhood.1

This scene of orthodox Jews and Israeli police swarming Sheikh Jarrah isn’t unusual, though, and it foreshadows what Israel hopes to achieve: transforming the Palestinian neighborhood into a Jewish-only space.

The Israeli government and settler organizations have long eyed Sheikh Jarrah, specifically given its proximity to the Old City. Utilizing discriminatory laws, settler groups have initiated forcible expulsion lawsuits against Palestinian residents in Sheikh Jarrah since the 1970s. Through Israel’s 1970 Legal and Administrative Procedures Law, an amendment to the 1950 Absentees’ Property Law, settlers sue Palestinians residing in properties that these settlers claim belonged to their families and were abandoned prior to the establishment of Israel in 1948. This law, however, doesn’t allow Palestinians, who also lost property prior to and during 1948, to reclaim their assets.

Jewish settlement of Sheikh Jarrah began in 1876 when Sephardi and Ashkenazi councils in Jerusalem teamed up to rent and purchase plots of land in the Kerem al-Juni section of the neighborhood to house lower-income Jews in the area. On the other side of Sheikh Jarrah, in an area called Umm Haroun, a Jewish settlement investment agency acquired the land in 1891 and distributed plots to Jews from Yemen, Aleppo, and Georgia. Over the course of Britain’s 30-year occupation of Palestine between 1917 and 1948, many Jewish settlers fled the area during the 1929 al-Buraq Uprising and the 1936–39 Great Palestinian Revolt. During the 1948 War, British forces and Zionist paramilitary groups, especially the Haganah, evacuated the rest of the Jewish residents of the area to the western part of Jerusalem that Israel had seized during the war and declared as part of the new state.2 Given this history, Israeli settlers have been arguing that the land, therefore, belongs to them.

However, despite five decades of Israeli settler attempts to forcibly expel Palestinians from their homes in Sheikh Jarrah, Israeli rights group Ir Amim notes, these efforts have largely failed to remove Palestinians en masse from the neighborhood. Only 10 houses have been seized by settlers to date.3

“The neighborhood remains not only a Palestinian neighborhood,” Ir Amim wrote in its July 2025 report on Sheikh Jarrah, “but also a prominent symbol of the Palestinian struggle in Jerusalem.”4

In coordination with settler organizations, Israel is shifting its efforts to solidify Jewish control of Sheikh Jarrah by implementing several new methods of displacement throughout the neighborhood.

Employing the housing development strategy known as urban renewal, the Jerusalem Development Authority (JDA), a joint agency between the Jerusalem Affairs and Jewish Heritage Ministry and the Jerusalem Municipality, is advancing two settlement plans totaling 2,000 housing units in Sheikh Jarrah.

In May 2025, the Jerusalem Municipality advanced a plan to demolish some 40 homes in Umm Haroun—which entails expelling 45 Palestinian families—in order to build 316 Jewish housing units, two of which are high-rise apartments, with one that would reach 30 stories (see Israel Aiming to Supplant Umm Haroun Area of Sheikh Jarrah with Settler Skyscrapers).

On September 21, 2025, the Jerusalem District Planning Committee discussed the JDA urban renewal plan to build 1,500 housing units across approximately 30 acres of land in what’s known as the Menachem Begin government complex (see Israel Plans New 30-Acre Settlement to Grab the Northern Edge of Sheikh Jarrah, Completing Its Encirclement). Given the plan is designated where Israel’s National Police headquarters, Ministry of National Security, and other government offices are located, the deadline to approve construction was extended to December 30, 2026.5

The Israeli government isn’t the only entity utilizing urban renewal to their advantage. In August 2025, Debrali Inc., a US-registered company run by Israeli settler activist Chaim Silberstein, applied for a permit to build three six-story duplexes atop the Sa‘u family home in Umm Haroun.6 Debrali Inc. came into possession of the plot of land on which the Sa‘u family home is built through the 1970 Legal and Administrative Procedures Law. Silberstein attempted to forcibly expel the family, but when that strategy failed, he initiated an urban renewal plan to demolish the home and replace it with a larger building. While the plan was approved in 2019, Silberstein has only now sought a permit for the construction. The Sa‘u family has filed an objection to Silberstein’s attempts to obtain a permit.7

The Sa‘u family moved into the home in 1963, when East Jerusalem was under Jordanian control.8 Through an Ottoman-era law that persisted under Jordanian rule, the Sa‘u family are classified as protected tenants, guarding them against evictions and establishing rent controls. While Israel abolished protected tenancy status when it occupied East Jerusalem in 1967, those who already obtained the status prior to Israeli occupation were allowed to remain protected tenants for three generations. According to the Third Generation Law, however, when the third generation passes away, the protected tenancy status becomes obsolete.9 According to Ir Amim, Silberstein’s plan to raze the Sa‘u family’s home, along with the JDA’s proposal to demolish 40 homes in Umm Haroun and build hundreds of settler homes atop the ruins, is the first time urban renewal is being used to displace Palestinians with protected tenancy status.10

Under Israeli law, “they can completely demolish and rebuild the area without the consent of the residents,” Amy Cohen of Ir Amim told Jerusalem Story.11 “Urban renewal isn’t new in the Israeli toolbook of urban development, [but] what is new is basically the exploitation of this kind of urban renewal strategy to uproot Palestinians who have been very difficult to uproot through various other measures.”

The Sa‘u family is relying on their rights as protected tenants to keep them from losing their home, specifically with the hope that they can secure court injunctions to delay the possibility of expulsion.

“We have protection as tenants who cannot be evicted, and that allows us to play with time. It’s just a matter of relying on extended time,” Mahmoud Sa‘u told Jerusalem Story.

Yet Cohen warns the use of urban renewal is setting a dangerous precedent that could reverberate across East Jerusalem.

“There is a very big chance that the state and settlers will end up using urban renewal throughout the city in areas they have targeted for a very long time, but where they have had issues with actually removing Palestinians from their homes because of very drawn-out legal proceedings,” Cohen said. With urban renewal, “in one fell swoop, you approve a plan, you get building permits, and then you can evict Palestinians and destroy the existing building.”

In addition to urban renewal, the Israeli state and settlers are exploiting the settlement of land title (SOLT) process to expel Palestinians from Sheikh Jarrah. In April 2021, all of Umm Haroun was registered to Jews under claims the area was owned by Jews before 1948 (see Land Registration in Jerusalem Is a “Grand Land Theft” from Palestinians—Ir Amim’s Amy Cohen).12

“On one side, if you pay, you agree that they own the land,” says Mohammad Sabbagh, an elderly member of the family. “If you say no, you have to move.”

At the time of writing, the family have still not made their decision.

“So, what do you prefer?” he asked rhetorically, “to pay rent on your home or leave it?”

Like the Sa‘us, the Sabbagh family are protected tenants. They are hoping that will in the least buy them time.

The extremist policies of the Israeli government have had a serious impact on Palestinians in Jerusalem, especially since October 7, 2023. Palestinians in Sheikh Jarrah, as elsewhere in the city, are being increasingly targeted by Israeli forces. Mahmoud describes Itamar Ben-Gvir’s forces coming to his house, calling him and his family “terrorists,” and telling them to “go to Syria.”

“But this might be a good thing,” Mahmoud adds. “The government is striking in all directions. Israel’s reputation is not what it used to be, especially to the outside world. With time, this might benefit us.”

Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza has diverted international attention away from Jerusalem and to the besieged strip, Cohen argues, thereby allowing Israel to expedite expulsion procedures in East Jerusalem.

“We have seen this exponential acceleration of developments and the use of new mechanisms in a simultaneous manner that are all converging together at this time. It’s not a coincidence,” Cohen said. “The authorities and settler groups obviously think that they can take advantage of this time to advance their agenda on the ground.”

Yet, while these measures are igniting widespread expulsions of Palestinians in Sheikh Jarrah, Cohen explains it’s more than just that. It’s about changing the identity of Sheikh Jarrah.

“It’s not just about physical displacement and dispossession. It’s also the complete transformation of the character of a space—the de-Palestinization of a particular space,” Cohen said. “And that in itself is just as powerful, because you are completely changing public consensus about Sheikh Jarrah.”