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A Palestinian man looks on
as an excavator clears the rubble of homes demolished by Israeli
authorities in the Silwan neighborhood of east Jerusalem, May 19, 2026.
© 2026 Mahmoud Illean/AP Photo
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Human Rights Watch
June 17, 2026
(Beirut) – Israeli
authorities are accelerating home demolitions and forced evictions of
Palestinian residents in the Silwan district of occupied East Jerusalem,
Human Rights Watch said today. The forcible deportation or transfer of
the population of an occupied territory within or outside the territory,
unless justified on a temporary basis for the protection of the
population itself or imperative military reasons, is a violation of international humanitarian law and amounts to a war crime.
Silwan lies south of Jerusalem’s Old City. Among its 12 neighborhoods, al-Bustan and Batn al-Hawa have for decades been the primary focus of eviction and demolition campaigns led by Israeli authorities and settler organizations such as Ateret Cohanim.
These campaigns intensified under cover of the hostilities in Gaza and,
this year, Iran. Of the 587 Palestinians displaced by demolitions since
October 7, 2023, a quarter were displaced during Israel’s war with Iran
in March-April 2026, according to
the United Nations Office for the Coordination and Humanitarian Affairs
(OCHA). Over 2,000 people are at risk of forced displacement in Silwan,
which, if not halted, will be one of the largest waves of expulsions in East Jerusalem since 1967, according to Ir Amim, an Israeli group that tracks government policies in Jerusalem.
“Israeli
authorities are intensifying their longstanding illegal policy of
emptying areas surrounding Jerusalem’s Old City of Palestinians and
replacing them with Israeli settlers,” said Sarah Sanbar, acting Israel and Palestine researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Israeli efforts to change the demography of Jerusalem are war crimes, enabled by the impunity granted by Israel’s close allies.”
Human
Rights Watch researchers visited Silwan in April 2026 and interviewed
three residents issued eviction and/or demolition orders and two lawyers
representing clients in Silwan, and reviewed relevant legal documents.
Human Rights Watch attempted to reach Ateret Cohanim by phone but has
not received a response.
The surge in displacement in Batn al-Hawa results from a series of eviction lawsuits filed by Ateret Cohanim, based on discriminatory
laws allowing Jewish individuals to reclaim East Jerusalem property
lost in the 1948 war, while barring Palestinians from recovering
property also lost in 1948. In al-Bustan, the entire neighborhood of 115
homes housing 1,500 people is under threat of demolition due to the municipality’s plan to establish an archaeological park.
Zuheir
al-Rajabi, director of Batn al-Hawa’s community center, said that
Ateret Cohanim first initiated eviction proceedings in 2015. “At the
beginning, we said, ‘What can they do? This is our land and house, we
have nothing to fear,’” he told Human Rights Watch.
For a decade,
he fought the eviction in Israeli courts: “But after October 7,
everything became possible. Judges began issuing eviction orders without
giving a chance to defend or hear from the victims. It used to take
three to five years to go through all the courts and appeals. After
October 7, the whole process only takes 45 days.”
A local lawyer said that “Sometimes, the decision takes one working day.”
Since
October 7, Ateret Cohanim lawsuits have resulted in the eviction of 30
families, a total of 139 people, with enforcement proceedings underway
for hundreds more, according to Peace Now, an Israeli group. In the 8 previous years, only 36 people were evicted.
Zuheir said that Israeli settlers have moved into
the homes of his former neighbors: “Now we feel like we are at the end
of the road. [...] For the last 50 years, we all lived together in
Silwan, my brothers and I, and our children growing up with each other.
We fought hard to stay together, and finally after 50 years, they
succeeded in splitting us apart.”
In April 2024, Harbi al-Rajabi
and his son, Nidal, received an eviction order for their building in
Batn al-Hawa, where five families lived... READ MORE https://www.hrw.org/news/2026/06/17/east-jerusalem-israel-escalating-home-demolitions-evictions
