Two major international human rights organisations have sounded urgent alarms over what they describe as a deliberate and accelerating campaign to displace Palestinians from the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. Amnesty International and Oxfam both released reports this week documenting a sharp rise in state-backed Israeli settler violence over the past three years, with Amnesty accusing the Israeli government of pursuing what it calls the "ethnic cleansing" of Palestinian communities across the territory Israel captured from Jordan in the 1967 Middle East War.
The concerns are playing out with particular intensity in Silwan, a densely populated Palestinian neighbourhood in East Jerusalem, just below the walled Old City. In the al-Bustan area alone, 59 properties have been demolished since late 2023, as Jerusalem's municipal authority accelerates enforcement of long-standing court orders tied to a plan to build a biblically-themed park — the King's Garden — to be managed by a Jewish settler organisation. Residents say efforts to negotiate alternative planning solutions have been rejected. Many facing demolition orders are choosing to destroy their own homes with sledgehammers to avoid municipal fines that can reach tens of thousands of dollars. "We spent our whole lives building this house," says Fayez Awad, 58, whose property has been partially demolished. "They brought us back to zero again, me and my children."
The structural pressures extend beyond demolitions. According to the Israeli human rights group Bimkom, only 7% of new housing approved in Jerusalem in 2025 was designated for Palestinians, who make up roughly 40% of the city's population. Israeli law also allows settlers to claim properties owned by Jews before the state was established in 1948, a mechanism being used in nearby Batn al-Hawa to reclassify long-standing Palestinian residents as "illegal squatters." Separately, a Jerusalem court has ordered the elderly members of the Basha family to vacate an apartment in the Old City's Muslim Quarter — a home their family has occupied since their ancestor preserved a historic yeshiva during sectarian unrest in 1929. A temporary injunction has paused the eviction while an appeal is considered.
Critics from Israeli anti-settlement groups such as Peace Now and Ir Amim say the pace of change has accelerated significantly. "With the Israeli government all restraints are off," says Aviv Tatarsky of Ir Amim, an organisation that advocates for Jerusalem as a shared city. "They are rushing to cement a reality of Jewish supremacy in the city that does not really tolerate Palestinian rights or maybe even Palestinian presence in Jerusalem." The Jerusalem Municipality stated it was working "for the benefit of all city residents" and sought to develop a park in an area with a "severe shortage of open public spaces."
Why this matters: Settlements and the forced transfer of populations from occupied territory are prohibited under international law, a position upheld by most countries, though Israel disputes this characterisation of its actions. With global attention focused on conflicts in Gaza, Iran, and Lebanon, advocates and residents fear the situation in the West Bank and East Jerusalem is being overlooked. The UN estimates around 900 Palestinians currently face active eviction proceedings in Israeli courts, mostly initiated by settlers. For communities in Silwan and beyond, the cumulative effect of demolitions, land registration changes, and settler expansion is reshaping the physical and demographic landscape of a city that sits at the heart of the unresolved Israeli-Palestinian conflict.