Israel Is Fast-Tracking the Displacement of Palestinians across East Jerusalem

From his balcony in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan, Zuheir Rajabi indicates which Palestinian homes have been seized by Israeli settlers, including one just below him.

“[Court] decisions on evacuation orders against Palestinian families living here have been made much quicker than before the war,” said Rajabi, whose family is facing expulsion threats from the Israeli settler group Ateret Cohanim.1

Since the start of the Gaza genocide in October 2023, settlers have taken over three homes in the Batn al-Hawa section of Silwan, where Rajabi lives.2 In June 2025, Israel’s Supreme Court rejected requests to appeal the lower court’s ruling on the evictions from the Odeh, Shweiki, and Umm Nasser Rajabi families.3 On September 29, 2025, the Enforcement and Collection Authority, Israel’s governmental agency responsible for enforcing judicial decisions, delivered eviction orders to these families, numbering some 40 individuals, meaning they could be forcibly expelled from their homes anytime between October 19 and November 4, 2025.4

“All of East Jerusalem is being targeted,” Rami Saleh, Jerusalem branch director of Jerusalem Legal Aid and Human Rights Center, told Jerusalem Story.5

Whole communities across East Jerusalem are at risk of being wiped out because of settler-initiated expulsions or government-enforced demolitions. Some of the main targets include Batn al-Hawa, Umm Tuba, al-Suwana, and Khillat al-Nu‘man—totaling over 1,000 Palestinians who could soon be displaced from land they’ve lived on for generations.

“[Alongside] the genocide in Gaza, there’s an Israeli decision that the Palestinian presence is not to be tolerated [in] the West Bank, East Jerusalem,” explains Aviv Tatarsky, a researcher at Ir Amim, an Israeli rights group monitoring Jerusalem policy.6 “It’s certainly not happening in the same scope as it is in the Gaza Strip, but it’s the same view that Palestinians are a problem, and the fewer of them [there are], the better.”

In Batn al-Hawa, approximately 700 residents are fighting to save their homes from being seized by settlers. Since 2016, Ateret Cohanim has used Israel’s 1970 Legal and Administrative Matters Law to sue families in Batn al-Hawa, claiming the property belongs to the Benvenisti Trust, which Ateret Cohanim took over in 2001.7 The Benvenisti Trust was established in 1899 primarily to house Yemenite immigrants in Silwan, who then abandoned the area during the 1936–39 Great Palestinian Revolt. The 1970 law allows Jews—but not Palestinians—to claim ownership of land and property lost after the 1948 partition of Palestine. This legislation is one of the main tools Israeli settlers use to displace Palestinians from East Jerusalem. To date, Ateret Cohanim has forcibly displaced 16 Palestinian families from Batn al-Hawa through these eviction lawsuits.8 (To learn more, see Settler State: Guide to the Israeli Settler Groups That Work to Dispossess Palestinians in Jerusalem.)

Throughout September 2025, the Jerusalem District Court delivered several rulings against families in Batn al-Hawa, thereby siding with Ateret Cohanim to expel the residents from their homes.

On September 7 and 8, 2025, the Jerusalem District Court rejected the appeals of the families of Khalil Basbous (9 people), Youssef Basbous (21 people), and Abdel Fattah Rajabi (18 people) against the lower court rulings.9 Now the families are appealing to the Supreme Court. On September 14, 2025, the Jerusalem District Court rejected the appeal of Zuheir Rajabi’s family (39 individuals).10 They will also now be heading to the Supreme Court. And on September 21, 2025, the Jerusalem District Court rejected an appeal brought by the Yaqoub Talal, Nidal, and Fathi Rajabi families, totaling 310 people.11

The families remain steadfast in their commitment to stay on their land as the cases head to the Supreme Court—the last legal attempt to save their homes. Like others in Batn al-Hawa, Qaed Rajabi, Zuheir Rajabi’s cousin, has lived his whole life in the same house that the settlers are threatening to take away.

“I’d prefer to have them come and demolish my house, and [I would] live in a tent right next to it instead of all my memories being erased,” Qaed Rajabi said.12 “I won’t go anywhere else.”

While Batn al-Hawa battles expulsions, other East Jerusalem areas are facing demolitions.

Under National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir’s authority, the Israeli National Enforcement Unit (NEU), a government agency responsible for enforcing planning and building laws, is seeking to demolish a five-story apartment building in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of al-Suwana.13

According to residents, the building was built in 2003 by a real estate developer, without the proper building permits—information not disclosed to the families when purchasing the apartments.14 A few years later, residents received demolition orders from the Jerusalem Municipality, notifying them that the building had been built without a permit. The contractor eventually left the country, leaving the residents to deal with the arduous process of legalizing the property. While the residents sought to work with the municipality to have the building approved, this plan and the demolition never materialized—until now. In July 2025, the NEU notified the approximately 140 residents that authorities will raze the building imminently.15

“The Israeli government with its right-wing components, they are looking to increase the implementation of demolition orders, not only in East Jerusalem but in the West Bank and in [Israel],” Saleh said.

Both Ben-Gvir and Israeli finance minister Bezalel Smotrich have repeatedly called to enforce the demolitions of Palestinian structures built without permits throughout the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. Ir Amim noted that the Ben-Gvir-led NEU generally doesn’t operate in East Jerusalem, given the municipality has its own enforcement agency—again suggesting the demolition of al-Suwana is politically motivated.16

Through their lawyer, the families received a temporary demolition freeze from Israel’s Supreme Court on the condition the residents submit a plan to legalize the building to the municipality.17 While the demolition remains suspended, the municipality’s planning committee—which receives such plans—declined to review the residents’ proposal after learning part of the land is under the Custodian of Absentee Property’s authority. At any moment, the Supreme Court could lift the freeze, allowing the NEU to proceed with the demolition.18

The residents believe the reason for the renewed demolitions efforts is political; the building’s former resident Sheikh Ekrima Sabri served as Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, a position overseeing Jerusalem’s Islamic holy sites, from 1994 to 2006.19 Israeli officials have accused Sabri of incitement over his fierce criticism of Israel. In fact, several right-wing organizations have protested Sabri and now claim their activism led to the government enforcing the demolition.20

“Having the sheikh here also probably affected the building a lot,” Abu Rafat, resident and head of the building’s committee, agreed.21 “It put it on the municipality’s radar. And it’s been a priority for them now to demolish it.”

Sabri moved out of the building over the summer when the demolition threats resurfaced, yet the campaign to demolish the building persists.

In the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Umm Tuba, around 150 residents may soon lose their homes after the Israel Land Authority, a governmental body managing Israeli state land, raided the area and issued demolition orders to the residents on August 21, 2025, on the grounds the land belongs to the Jewish National Fund (JNF), a quasi-governmental agency established in 1901 to purchase Palestinian land for Jewish settlement. In May 2023, Israel’s Land Registry Office recorded Umm Tuba’s land under the ownership of the JNF, without informing the residents this process of land registration was happening in their neighborhood. The residents had built their homes over four decades and obtained building permits from the Jerusalem Municipality, the closest thing available in unplanned areas to legal recognition of Palestinian ownership.22

Residents and rights groups alike surmise Umm Tuba’s location is the reason its residents are being targeted for demolition. The neighborhood is surrounded by the proposed Israeli settlement projects of Givat Hamatos, Lower Aqueduct, and Nofey Rachel, as well as the Israeli settlement of Har Homa. Plans are also underway to build 400 Jewish settler homes within Umm Tuba and 1,500 Jewish settler homes between Umm Tuba and the Israeli settlement of Gilo.

Also on the southern end of Jerusalem near Bethlehem, the Palestinian village of Khillat al-Nu‘man could soon be entirely erased. On July 30, 2025, the Jerusalem Municipality issued demolition notices—the third warning the residents have received this year—to all 45 buildings in Khillat al-Nu‘man, where approximately 150 Palestinians live.23

Construction of the Separation Wall in 2003, and the subsequent installation of the Israeli military checkpoint al-Numan/Mazmuriyya in 2006 next to Khillat al-Nu‘man, completely disconnected the village from its surroundings. This checkpoint is disconnects the Palestinian localities of Sur Bahir, Umm Tuba, and the small village of al-Nu‘man from the Palestinian localities to the east and is only open to residents of the village and holders of Israeli IDs (see Checkpoints, Part 1: Severing Jerusalem). Residents live like prisoners in their own homes, requiring permission from the Israeli army manning the Mazmuriyya checkpoint to enter through the gates of Khillat al-Nu‘man. While Israel occupied the village in 1967, residents were not granted Israeli permanent residency, and most of them only hold Palestinian Authority (PA) ID cards; therefore most residents need to apply for military entry permits to enter Jerusalem.

“After the events of October 7, 2023, we’re not even given those permits to enter Jerusalem,” Jamal Dara’awi, a resident of Khillat al-Nu‘man, said, adding that the court sessions on their case only occur in Jerusalem.24 “The Jerusalem Municipality refused to let us into Jerusalem to attend the court sessions, and they refused to run the sessions here in the village.”

The municipality has refused to draw up a zoning plan that would legalize building in the area for the village or to allow any construction in it, saying the area is a designated nature reserve, and therefore construction is prohibited.25 (For more on how Palestinians are prevented from developing planning maps, see Planning Expert Explains New Protocol Stopping Palestinian Residential Development in East Jerusalem.)

“[Israel] allows settlers to come and build on our land freely and with no restrictions whatsoever,” Dara’awi said, “while the people who have always lived here for a long time—and for longer than the settlers—cannot build and are threatened with displacement and expulsion.” The Israeli settlement of Har Homa is adjacent to Khillat al-Nu‘man.

According to the Israeli government, Palestinian Jerusalemites need at least 2,000 housing units approved for construction each year to meet their growing population’s housing needs. Yet the Jerusalem Municipality, between 1991 and 2008, only gave 16.5 percent of the total approved building permits in Jerusalem to Palestinians.26

“As far as demolitions are concerned, they are happening with a background of decades of discrimination in planning and building,” Tatarsky said. “Over the last few years, the discrimination has worsened . . . so this means that even if the demolition policy would stay the same, you’d see more and more demolitions because people do not have an alternative. They cannot get a construction permit.”

Without permits, building in Khillat al-Nu‘man nonetheless proceeded by necessity. Most of the structures there were built in the 1930s, long before Israel’s occupation of East Jerusalem in 1967.

“The municipality said [to us] that no matter how old your house is, if you have a West Bank [PA] ID, your house will get a demolition order,” Yousef Dara’awi, a resident of Khillat al-Nu‘man, said.27 “My grandparents lived in caves, and then they built these houses. We’ve always been here. This is the family’s land.”