Losing Houses but Staying Home in Jerusalem

Home is often imagined as a place of rest; a space where the body softens, the mind quiets, and belonging requires no effort. But what happens to one’s perception of home upon receiving a military order to self-destroy one’s space after having lived there for decades and paying tremendous fines to preserve it unsuccessfully?

Samer Sharif, 37, is a Jerusalemite filmmaker and photographer who has dedicated time and effort to answering this question. In June 2026, he finished a master’s degree in fine arts in contemporary visual arts from Dar al-Kalima University in Bethlehem. His aim was to study the alarming, brutal, and irrevocable shifting of the home space. He titled his thesis, “Self-Demolition of Palestinian Homes in Jerusalem.”1

In an interview with Jerusalem Story on June 7, 2026, Samer shared insight about his research, the timing of which is particularly significant. As he completed his thesis,2 forced self-demolitions and expulsions across East Jerusalem have been accelerating (see Israel Is Fast-Tracking the Displacement of Palestinians across East Jerusalem).

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has reported that 257 structures in East Jerusalem were demolished in 2025, and 152 more by June 2026. Between 2025 and the first half of 2026, more than 950 Palestinians were displaced in these two ways.3 More often than not, the premise is that these buildings were built without permits, but the Israeli authorities make it nearly impossible for Palestinians in Jerusalem to obtain building permits (see Palestinians in East Jerusalem Facing Record Levels of Displacement, Study Reveals).The Jerusalem Municipality has consistently rejected granting permits for Palestinians in Jerusalem: in 2025, only 7 percent of new housing was approved for Palestinians, while hundreds of Israeli settlements with parks, parking lots, and spacious areas are granted permits.4 Even more heartbreaking than having one’s home demolished is the seemingly less expensive option, which is self-demolition.5 Basically, the city forces people to choose between destroying their own homes or paying the authorities far higher costs to do it.

As Samer explains, over 30 percent of the 719 homes (most recently received demolition orders) have been destroyed through self-demolition. The concept of this is beyond devastating, he clarifies, noting that the homeowner already paid thousands upon thousands of Israeli shekels for engineers and lawyers in an attempt to preserve the house, only to pay thousands more in destruction fees, over a time period that extends years, even decades. The never-ending cycle of bureaucratic processes, including the ongoing and destabilizing fines, lawyers’ and engineers’ fees, and the imminent demolition orders, is deeply debilitating.

For Samer, writing about this issue was by no means an easy endeavor, because he does not write as an outsider but rather as a Palestinian Jerusalemite who himself must face a suffocating legal system amid the attempted demographic reengineering of Jerusalem. There is a never-ending list of municipal property taxes, licensing procedures, fines, permits, and the constant burden of having to prove one’s “center of life” to maintain legal status (see Precarious Status) and live and work in Jerusalem, he explains, not to mention the military checkpoints and the shrinking geography of home (see Closure and Access to Jerusalem). Furthermore, he said, he started his research as Israel launched its genocidal war on Gaza—a time that was beyond overwhelming.

“Home,” as Samer describes it, is tied to the word maskan in Arabic; the place where one dwells. The origin of the word is sakan (residence) and this happens to be connected, in Arabic, to the words sukun, which means calmness and stability, and sakina, meaning serenity. The mere concept of home, therefore, is directly and linguistically linked with the sense of reassurance and comfort. Meanwhile, uprooting Jerusalemites from their homes is not just about losing their physical places; it is about knowing every day that safety is fragile, stability can disappear without warning, and there is no solid ground on which to stand.6

“This sense of loss, which began decades ago and became acute during the 1948 War, represents the antithesis of comfort,” Samer told Jerusalem Story.7 Through endless Israeli military and municipal orders, he explained, Palestinians repeatedly encounter the sudden rush of anxiety as they are confronted with the abrupt and extremely shocking notices that deem their residence illegal and demand a speedy evacuation from their own homes. Even when the process is more gradual, such as is the case with the demolition orders pertaining to houses in Silwan and Jabal Mukabbir (see Hundreds of Palestinians in Jerusalem’s Silwan Neighborhood Face Forcible Expulsion and Coercive Urban Governance through Home Demolition and Displacement in Jabal Mukabbir), the creeping sense of doom grips the residents who are mortified by the gradual unfolding of dread; the anticipation of being forcibly removed from their homes; and, on top of all this, they will have to pay ridiculous amounts of money for the eventual and inevitable destruction.

In his research, Samer examines the policy of forced self-demolition imposed on Palestinians in Jerusalem through heart-wrenching accounts from families in Jabal Mukabbir and Silwan and delves into the financial, social, and emotional repercussions and detrimental effects on the families. Samer explores the subject using the framework of settler-colonial studies, assisted by his supervisor, Dr. Rehab Nazzal, a multidisciplinary artist whose work deals with the effects of settler-colonial violence on the bodies and minds of colonized peoples, as well as on the land and other nonhuman life. In addition to the research, Samer interviewed people for his experimental documentary, Jerusalem Is Home,8 to hear firsthand from those experiencing the traumatizing effect of having to self-destroy their homes after decades of building, paying, investing, and dwelling.

The news of self-demolitions often passes fleetingly as quick headlines, Samer explains, “but we seldom see the family itself; we rarely get to hear about their circumstances or hear their stories.” And that was what he wanted to document.

Originally, he had been astonished by the draining exhaustion—the depletion—that he could visibly see on the sunken faces and shrunk bodies of Palestinians in Jerusalem, demonstrating the weight of the sorrow they carry. “You can visibly see how we are going face-to-face with the world, feeling alone and unprotected,” he said.

“There is a general feeling of loss,” he adds. “When people get a demolition order, they do their best to act accordingly. They pay fine after fine, get all the information, hire lawyers, ask and plead, shielded only by a sense of hope that things will work out.” Tragically, he says, things seldom work out.

He explains how, enveloped in the premise of “legal orders,” inhabitants are mortified by the horror of having 24 hours to evacuate their homes. He shares examples of individuals who have had to pay thousands in fines before their houses got reduced to rubble, after which they were charged even more to remove the remaining debris.

The process often happens gradually, and “slowly but surely” it strangles the finances and one’s sense of agency and choice.

“Self-demolition is definitely not a decision; it’s beyond agonizing to have to destroy your home with your own hands,” explains Ahmad al-Qanbar, one of the people Samer interviewed, who is from Jabal Mukabbir. Ahmad told Samer how the Israeli army takes aggressive measures in these matters: “They leave no house, no tree . . . They may beat your parents, break the road, wreak havoc, and terrorize the residents.”9 This was echoed by another family, the Rajabis from Silwan (see Trapped in a System That Seeks to Remove Them), who shared how refusing to destroy one’s house results in harsher repercussions, because the army will carry out the demolition order in an abrupt and aggressive manner, arriving without notice, forcibly removing the inhabitants and all their possessions, and terrorizing the entire neighborhood.10 What follows the destruction, in addition to the accumulation of fees and expenses, is a fragmented family, with members finding temporary shelter at various relatives’ or neighbors’ homes (see The Aftermath of a Home Demolition and Sophia’s World Comes Crashing Down).

In confronting the loss of agency, Samer finds that it is crucial to steer away from self-blame and to shift to gaining good knowledge and understanding of the broader context. It is critical to understand that this depletion is not random, but rather intentional, he explains. This is not a case of ill fate or personal ignorance of the legal system, he stressed; rather, it is a case of an entire system deliberately aimed at reducing, removing, and forgetting the Palestinian collective presence. “This is a system that intends to deport you, to shatter your spirit, to break you,” Samer said.

Home demolitions are not an isolated undertaking; they are “part of a broader settler-colonial project,” he explains, aimed at reshaping the spatial and demographic reality in Jerusalem through multiple tools ranging from legal pressure, economic coercion, to direct on-the-ground violence.

Samer notes that one of the best ways to describe this broader context of domination and control has been through the Arabic concept ihala, coined by Dr. Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, which connotes swarming, attacking, and invading.11 This term is in reference to the totalitarian settler-colonial system designed to gradually shatter the Indigenous society. It is the monstrous power dynamic that stands in the face of the Palestinian Jerusalemite, who is intentionally made to be “paralyzed by a sense of impotence,”12 thereby stripping him or her of their sense of agency, according to Martin Kemp.

In this respect, Samer clarifies that the permitting policy, which does not give Palestinians of Jerusalem the right to build, is primarily meant to erase the original inhabitants and is used as a tool of control, leaving the individual utterly depleted with no clear breaking point. The ceaseless pressure becomes so exhausting that by the time the shocking decision of home demolition is made, the person has already been so financially and mentally drained that they cannot fathom, implement, or act accordingly.

After completing his research, Samer concludes that “the subject isn’t the destruction of the home, but the home itself . . . What is important to pay attention to is not the removal of the people, but the presence of the people.” The idea of having a home in Jerusalem, he proceeds to explain, carries so many layers: joy, sadness, anger, past memories, and future potential.

He reaches this conclusion not only from his interviews but from his own lived experience as a Jerusalemite who has had to move from home to home, rental to rental, throughout his childhood, adolescence, and adulthood due to the changing political reality on the ground.

Before pursuing his master’s degree at Dar al-Kalima, Samer obtained a bachelor’s degree in media and political sciences from Birzeit University. Getting to class every day from Jerusalem entailed an arduous journey involving dangerous checkpoints (see As Israel Targets Universities, Jerusalemite Students Are Especially Challenged). Even earlier, Samer had to move back and forth in between al-‘Izariyya, Shu‘fat, Beit Hanina, and Abu Dis due to the changes being enforced by the Separation Wall. His family was forced to move to Beit Hanina and change his school to Shu‘fat, but he insisted on going back to his Ma‘had al-‘Arabi High School in Abu Dis, which put him under greater risk, since he had to pass at least two checkpoints every time he went to or from school, but it also gave him an understanding of the changes on the ground.

“I lived the transformation. I saw the creation of the wall in front of my eyes,” he told Jerusalem Story. He shared how going to school in the early 2000s required him to hop off the first bus going to Abu Dis, walk by foot, jump over the wall at a low point, and cross a block through a slight entrance, then hop on another bus on the other side. However, the Israeli army removed that final remaining block eventually, forcing him to turn around and take a long detour from the opposite direction. “What do you mean, go back!” He recalls how, as a high school student, he had been absolutely shocked to hear this. “My school is right there! Just let me pass this one last time, and tomorrow I will turn around!” He remembers how he pleaded with the soldiers, but “they beat me that day,” he mentions casually, “and that moment marked the day that particular route got permanently closed.”

Samer highlights the importance of documenting these experiences: “What is not narrated may be lost, and what is lost can be easily redefined or erased entirely,” he insists. In the context of home demolition, he explains that the loss extends beyond a place of residence to the erasure of memory itself, stripping one of childhood recollections, human and social relationships, and the experiences of everyday life. If not well preserved and documented, this may induce amnesia.

Today, Samer is married and a father of three. His wife, Malak Othman, is a renowned pregnancy and birth companion, breastfeeding counselor, and educator on sexual and reproductive health and rights. Living in Beit Safafa, the couple are keen on making positive contributions to their society.

Although he is well aware of the weight of the city, as observed in the sour faces of its inhabitants, the love of the city is even more visible. “The beautiful Palestinian collective spirit is ever present here,” he shares. “The connections between families, neighbors, friends, and like-minded individuals are empowering for the residents.” He finds that despite the destruction and loss, the togetherness in weddings, funerals, and social gatherings helps to mitigate the losses. “It is crucial for us to write, document, contribute, and share,” he stresses. “Once we understand that there is a broader programming, we can be a little easier on ourselves, and we can support each other better as we confront the domination.”

At the end of the day, Jerusalem is a place that is being fought for because, as Samer reflects, “it has historic significance and value.” He adds that the inhabitants’ connection to their city is due to Jerusalem being their home.