Jerusalem’s al-Bustan Neighborhood in Peril as More Homes and Community Center Demolished

On November 13, 2024, Jerusalem Municipality bulldozers plowed through the East Jerusalem neighborhood of al-Bustan in the Silwan area—demolishing the offices of the al-Bustan Association and its community center there, and one home belonging to the Al Qadi family. Founded in 2004, the community center served 1,500 residents, most of them children, who enjoyed educational, cultural, and artistic workshops. The center was funded and supported by France and 21 French local authorities1 and provided a semblance of a safe haven for the children of al-Bustan, who are traumatized by frequent arrests and home demolitions by authorities.

A week prior, the municipality demolished seven homes belonging to the Palestinian families of Abu Diab, al-Ruwaidi, and Ayed, leaving around 40 people—half of them children—homeless.2

“The Israeli occupation is targeting the al-Bustan neighborhood to establish a Judaization project on the ruins of our homes, in order to displace us from the city of Jerusalem and Judaize it,”3 Fakhri Abu Diab, a community leader and spokesperson for Silwan, told Jerusalem Story. For Fakhri, 62, this was the second time his family home where he was born was demolished—the first was in mid-February 2024. Three generations lived in the house, which had also belonged to his father and his grandfather before him. Fakhri had managed to rebuild part of what was destroyed, but the new construction was leveled, in addition to more areas of his property that had not been bulldozed the first time. His son’s family house was also demolished.

Part of a local park used by residents was also destroyed. At least four bulldozers under heavy police protection carried out the operation.4

“Now, they have demolished the old and the new,” Fakhri said. “This is revenge, especially since there is an attack now on al-Bustan neighborhood.”

Approximately 108 homes are still at risk of being demolished to make way for municipal plans to build a biblically themed Judeo-centric touristic archaeological park, referred to as the King’s Garden, atop the neighborhood’s ruins (Plan 18000: The King’s Park).5 If the wide-scale demolition is fully enacted, 1,550 residents will be displaced.

For two decades, the Jerusalem Municipality has sought to turn al-Bustan into the King’s Garden national park, but international opposition has largely saved the neighborhood from mass demolition. Additionally, residents secured a demolition freeze while they worked with the municipality to develop a zoning plan for al-Bustan.

When Israel occupied East Jerusalem in 1967, it declared al-Bustan a “green space,”6 which means that the area is restricted from construction for conservation reasons, despite Palestinians having built homes in the neighborhood before 1967. Often, the Israeli designation of land as “green space” is used to prevent Palestinian construction while seizing Palestinian land under the guise of environmental preservation. Without a proper zoning plan, al-Bustan residents were forced to build without permits, which the municipality then classified as illegal construction, which was therefore subject to demolition.

Negotiations between the municipality and residents to agree on a zoning plan, which would then legalize al-Bustan buildings, reached an impasse after Israel launched its genocidal war on Gaza on October 7, 2023. Residents say that throughout the war, the municipality has stopped meeting with them and instead is pressuring the community to sign off on the municipality’s proposed zoning plan, which still requires homes to be demolished (see Home Demolitions Spike in East Jerusalem as Ongoing War Averts Attention).

Aviv Tatarsky, a researcher at Ir Amim, an Israeli nonprofit monitoring Israeli policy in Jerusalem, explained that residents have initiated zoning plans, but the municipality has consistently rejected their proposals.

“In order to get [the zoning plan] approved, that’s in the hands of the Israeli authorities, which, of course, refused even to consider the plan, because they want to make it into a national park, which is basically another form of a settlement,” Tatarsky told Jerusalem Story.7

“They [kill] two birds with one stone,” Tatarsky added. “They expel 1,500 Palestinians from the neighborhood, and they transfer another big part of the neighborhood to the hands of the settler organizations.”

The King’s Garden park would be an extension8 of the City of David national park, run by the settler group Ir David (see Settler State: Guide to the Israeli Settler Groups That Work to Dispossess Palestinians in Jerusalem).

With all legal avenues exhausted, Tatarsky notes that political pressure is the only way to halt the ongoing demolitions.

“It’s a political issue. It’s not a planning issue or a legal issue,” Tatarsky said. “The mayor is directly involved, and it’s very clear that this is also coming from the government—the prime minister . . . They can decide either to carry out the demolitions . . . or to advance a plan for the residents.”

Hours after the November 13, 2024, demolitions, Israeli border police patrolled al-Bustan and the nearby neighborhoods of Batan al Hawa and Bir Ayyub—releasing tear gas into the streets.

“Al-Bustan has been quiet all day, except for the noise of the demolition,” Fakhri said. “No clashes, no arrests, no stone throwing, no fireworks. During the entire demolition, there was no resistance from any of the al-Bustan or neighboring communities.”

Jerusalem Story was on the ground on the day of the demolition of Fakhri’s home and captured it on video.

Since the recent wave of demolitions in al-Bustan, Israeli police have exerted even more control over the neighborhood.

Claiming he was breaching public security, police arrested Fakhri for organizing Friday prayers near the demolished homes on November 8, 2024. Fakhri was released after spending several hours in detention. Israeli security forces erected barriers at the location of the suggested prayer, leading only a handful of residents to participate.

Israeli police had previously prevented the holding of Friday prayers multiple times as well as a press conference by the Silwan Land Defense Committee in areas threatened with demolition.

One of the prayer participants, who asked not to be named, said: “Israeli intelligence and police are putting a lot of pressure on us and that any statement we make to the media could be considered incitement and we could be arrested and brought to trial. That is why the majority of us are afraid to speak to the media. This right-wing government does not hesitate to do anything against us.”9

Silwan resident Abu Yousef al-Rashq, whose home is under threat of demolition, told Jerusalem Story that Israeli police frequently raid homes in al-Bustan. His home has been raided and vandalized more than 15 times, and his children are forced to sleep in their work clothes in case the house is raided and they are arrested. Soldiers also seek to vandalize and destroy the contents as part of a systematic campaign aimed at displacing the residents under constant pressure.

“We live in a daily nightmare and do not know when they will raid our homes to demolish them,”10 Abu Yousef said.

Looking at the rubble of Fakhri’s home, a Silwan resident who wished to remain anonymous, encapsulated the fear and apprehension sweeping the neighborhood.

“Look at this house, it belongs to an activist who was the most active and visible in the media to explain the situation of Silwan in general and al-Bustan in particular,” the resident said. “He was threatened more than once not to speak to the media and finally his house was demolished.”