Israeli Bulldozers Demolish 150+ East Jerusalem Buildings Since Gaza War Began

Under the cover of the war in Gaza, Israeli authorities are multiplying demolitions in the Arab neighborhoods of East Jerusalem, with more than 150 buildings destroyed there since the start of the year.

“An Israeli human rights group, Bimkom, disclosed a dangerous escalation in discriminatory planning policies against Palestinians in occupied East Jerusalem”

Al-Jazeera Net

In Silwan, a neighborhood near the Old City, three Israeli bulldozers arrived early Monday morning to demolish a four-story building, which AFP reported was protected by a heavy deployment of Israeli forces.

Al-Jazeera Net

A woman in the street told AFP, "They’re destroying my bedroom," as the demolition unfolded in a cloud of dust.

Eid Shawar, 38, said police kicked in his door to begin the evictions and that "We were not allowed to take our furniture," describing clashes as Israeli workers packed residents’ clothes to speed up the demolition.

The Jerusalem municipality, contacted by AFP, said the building was "built without permits" and had been the subject of a "judicial demolition order" since 2014.

A separate AFP report described how demolitions and evictions are tied to forced displacement, with the Governorate of Jerusalem condemning "a systematic policy of forced displacement of Palestinian citizens, aimed at emptying the city of Jerusalem of its original inhabitants."

In northern Jerusalem, the Association France Palestine Solidarité said a regional planning and building commission on Wednesday, December 17, 2025 would discuss creating a new neighborhood in the Atarot area expected to include 9,000 housing units on the site of the abandoned Atarot airport.

Amnesty International

The same AFP-linked dispute over land and continuity is echoed in the AFP account that Israel regards East Jerusalem as an integral part of its capital while Palestinians want the city to be the capital of an independent and sovereign state.

Amnesty International said that since December 2025 Israeli authorities adopted illegal measures aimed at dispossessing Palestinians of their land in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and making annexation an irreversible reality.

Amnesty International’s Erika Guevara-Rosas said, "We are facing a state, led by a prime minister sought by the International Criminal Court for war crimes and crimes against humanity" as it accused Israel of accelerating settlement expansion.

Bimkom, as cited by Al-Jazeera Net, said that in 2025 Israeli planning authorities approved about 600 housing units for Palestinians in occupied East Jerusalem compared with about 9,000 housing units approved for Jews.

“On Wednesday, December 17, 2025, the regional planning and building commission will discuss the creation of a new neighborhood in northern Jerusalem”

Association France Palestine Solidarité

The same statement said Palestinians accounted for at most 7% of the housing units approved last year, while they make up about 40% of the population, and that Palestinians currently receive only about 26% of the city’s total housing units.

Al-Jazeera Net also reported that Bimkom attributed the disparity to tightening procedures for proving land ownership as a prerequisite for approving building plans and issuing licenses, affecting Palestinians in Jerusalem where most land remains outside official registration in the cadastre.

Bimkom’s architect Sari Kronish said planning policies in Jerusalem have become "a central tool for the city’s demographic and political engineering," and that the data reveal a policy aimed at reshaping Jerusalem by expelling Palestinians and dispossessing them of their lands.

The Al-Jazeera Net report further said the Israeli government decided in early February to complete settlement and registration of all lands in Jerusalem by the end of 2029 in the cadastre, a move Ir Amim described as effectively entrenching Israeli control over East Jerusalem.