🚨BREAKING: After 4 years on hold, Israel has suddenly resumed advancement of the highly controversial E1 settlement plans for over 3400 housing units. The timing is striking - coming directly after Netanyahu's White House visit last week. 1/5 As Israeli Prime Minister headed home on Thursday, the Civil Administration’s Higher Planning Council announced that the final hearing on objections will take place on either July 22 or August 6, 2025, bringing the plans just one stage shy of final approval. 2/5

🧵Unprecedented: in a 1st Israel demolishes homes in E. Jerusalem during Ramadan.

For decades, Israel has refrained from carrying out demolitions in EJ during Ramadan.

In the past wk- the 1st wk of Ramadan-the state demolished 4 structures in EJ, including 2 homes + a farm. 1/4 This follows an unparalleled rise in demolitions since the outbreak of the war. Home demolitions in EJ reached a record number in 2024, displacing 181 Palestinian families. Since the start of 2025, 46 structures have already been demolished—and the trend is only accelerating. 2/4

24 families in Batan Al-Hawa, Silwan (East Jerusalem) received an eviction ruling last week. We are talking about 139 Palestinians whom the state is deciding to kick out of their homes so that a settler organization can take over them.

🔴 How is this legal?

In fact, it is the law, an inherently discriminatory one, which enables this to happen and gives it an air of legality. After occupying East Jerusalem in 1967, Israel also annexed it into its territory, applying its own laws to EJ. One of these laws states that property in EJ that was once Jewish-owned can be “reclaimed”, regardless of the Palestinian families that now live in those homes (and without allowing Palestinians to similarly reclaim property in West Jerusalem or the rest of what became Israel). 🧵 ⚖️How is this law being applied in Silwan?

In Batan Al-Hawa, the Benvenisti Trust, a Jewish charitable organization which built homes in the area 100+ years ago, is now claiming ownership of 80+ homes where Palestinian families have lived in for generations.

The Trust exists from back in the 19th century, but today, it is being managed by members of the Ateret Cohanim organization which, with the help of the state’s Registrar of Trusts, got its members appointed as trustees.

So, an already discriminatory law is being used by an overtly political organization with no ties to the original trustees (and no continuation of the trust’s original goals), with the help of the state and the court system, to push Palestinian families out of their homes and settle them with Jewish families instead.

Their goal is to increase Jewish presence in East Jerusalem and, together with other projects, change the face of the neighborhood into a Jewish Israeli one—Increasing Israeli control over the whole area in an effort to shape the political future of the city. 🧵

Tomorrow, Rami Shafa, his brothers, and their mother, will likely have their home destroyed by the Jerusalem municipality.

This year, 13 neighboring homes and a vibrant community center in the Palestinian neighborhood of Al-Bustan, Silwan have been demolished.

For background >> The demolition will be presented as 'enforcement' of a transgressed building regulation; the authorities will argue that the families built without a permit and unauthorized buildings are subject to demolition. >>

The neighborhood of Al-Bustan in East Jerusalem is being destroyed. This morning, bulldozers arrived again, a week after they demolished 6 other homes. The authorities are not only destroying people’s homes, but also specifically targeting those who oppose this destruction. 🧵 Today, they targeted the solidarity tent—a space aimed at fostering solidarity among Silwan residents and with others who care about protecting the neighborhood and which, over the years, had become a landmark spot in the community. 🧵

🧵A total of 6 homes were demolished yesterday in Al-Bustan, Silwan.

6 families lost their homes.

At least some of them will be pushed to live elsewhere. In another community. Perhaps not in Jerusalem.

Even families who didn’t lose their home today know that theirs may be next 🧵Time and time again demolitions are justified under the guise of “enforcing building regulation”.

“If only they obeyed the law, they wouldn’t have their homes demolished”

“If only they would build with a permit, like everyone else does”

But this obscures what is taking place

🧵In a period where we, as human beings, need community the most, a home, a safe haven, the Jerusalem municipality has decided to hand out demolition orders to seven families in al-Bustan, Silwan (East Jerusalem) including to the neighborhood's community center 🧵The center serves over 1,000 residents—especially women, youth, and children—with a variety of cultural and educational activities: art, theatre, sports... and could be destroyed as early as next week.

🧵As the water shortage in Kfar Aqab (East Jerusalem) continues for a third straight month, Israeli authorities are now shifting responsibility for a solution to the Palestinian Authority 👇🏾

bit.ly/3Be1To7
🧵Over a month ago, residents of Kfar Aqab, together w. @acri_online and Ir Amim, filed a petition to the Supreme Court demanding a solution to the water shortage in Kfar Aqab. In response to the Court’s request, the state submitted a medium-term plan for increasing water supply

🧵Two more Palestinian homes were demolished this morning in Walaja (East Jerusalem).

The fact that this has become a ‘normal’ feature of the landscape in our city is horrific; a sign of the violence we’ve become used to. 🧵In Walaja, the state has *never( approved a zoning plan, meaning no building permits can be issued and all new construction (which naturally occurs as the population grows) is considered illegal and subject to demolition.

🧵For decades, Muhammad Kastiro has been running his coffee shop outside the Old City. Now, he could be evicted from it at any moment.
As the devastation continues in Gaza and spreads across the WB, a quieter, ‘bureaucratic’ form of dispossession is taking place in East Jerusalem 🧵In the past months, Israeli courts have handed down several eviction rulings, affecting businesses like Muhammad’s and putting several families (over 60 individuals) across East Jerusalem (EJ) at risk of losing their homes.

🧵Last week, Zuheir Rajabi—an outspoken activist against evictions in Batan al-Hawa, Silwan—was assaulted by the police.

Yesterday, as Ir Amim team members came to visit him, we ran into police guiding a tour of the neighborhood for representatives of the tech giant @intel... 🧵We heard the police describing a neighborhood where Israelis and Palestinians share daily life and the municipality invests in the residents’ wellbeing—An image far from reality, in which Palestinian families are being evicted from their homes, and settlers taking over them…

🧵Yesterday, settlers—accompanied by armed police—took over the home of the Shehadeh family in Batan al-Hawa, Silwan.
The family lost their home to an organization intent on displacing their entire community, all with the help of a legal system that imparts anything but justice.

🧵This is the 15th family to be evicted from the neighborhood since the settler organization, Ateret Cohanim, started its activity in the area. Another 80+ families are under threat of eviction, meaning mass-scale displacement is on the line.

1/6 Earlier today, 🇮🇱 police forces arrived at a house in Al-Bustan (East Jerusalem), took out all the family’s belongings, and demolished their home.

Over the coming days, another 15 homes could be similarly destroyed, leaving ~100 people homeless. (Video by @Jahalin) 2/6 Around 1,500 Palestinians live in al-Bustan, Silwan, a neighborhood just outside the Old City walls where 100+ homes are at risk of demolition—according to Israeli law, they were built ‘illegally’, but the planning policy doesn’t allow residents to build any other way…

1/5 This morning, 5 families lost their homes.
They woke up to the sight of police accompanied by a bulldozer and, moments later, their houses were destroyed.
In Walaja—a Palestinian village south of Jerusalem—every home built risks this fate; since 2016, 60 have been demolished. 2/5 In ’67, when Israel occupied and annexed East Jerusalem and surrounding areas, a portion of Walaja was annexed—according to Israel, it became part of the JLM municipality. The state’s absence is felt in the lack of services, but its destructive force is ever-present.

1/4 Against the backdrop of Hamas’ brutal attack on southern Israel and the ensuing outbreak of the war with its devastating humanitarian toll in Gaza, collective punishment, incitement, and violence against East Jerusalem Palestinians have also dramatically increased.

2/4 This joins a spate of ongoing incidents of settler terrorism, military violence, and processes of displacement taking place across the West Bank while attention is diverted to Gaza. See @peacenowisrael latest alert on settler violence—> bit.ly/3M6mWLM