Israeli forces evict 11 Palestinian families from Silwan in occupied East Jerusalem

Israeli forces forcibly evicted 11 Palestinian families from their homes in the Silwan neighborhood of occupied East Jerusalem on Wednesday, March 25, 2026, under heavy police escort.

“About a dozen Palestinian families have been pushed out of their homes in occupied East Jerusalem, as human rights groups warn that Israel is intensifying a wave of forced displacement across the area”

Al Jazeera

The evictions targeted residents of the Batn al-Hawa area, where Israeli authorities accompanied settlers from the Ateret Cohanim organization, which advocates settlement expansion in Palestinian neighborhoods of Jerusalem.

Al Jazeera

Video footage documented settlers throwing furniture, personal belongings, and even children's toys out of apartment windows while raising Israeli flags above the seized buildings.

Norwegian Refugee Council reported that the vacated homes are expected to be transferred to the settler organization, demonstrating the systematic nature of property confiscation and settlement expansion in occupied Palestinian territory.

The evictions are being justified through discriminatory Israeli laws that allow for property reclamation based on pre-1948 ownership claims and Ottoman-era documents.

Israeli authorities rely on a 1970 law that permits Jews who lost property before Israel's establishment to reclaim it, as well as documents claiming Yemeni Jewish origins for the land dating to periods before Palestinian uprisings between 1929 and 1936.

France 24

Human rights organizations B'Tselem and other groups have condemned these legal mechanisms as tools of ethnic cleansing, arguing they are selectively applied to facilitate settler expansion while systematically displacing Palestinian residents from their ancestral homes in East Jerusalem.

The evictions in Silwan represent part of a broader pattern of forced displacement affecting approximately 2,200 Palestinians in the neighborhood who face imminent threat of losing their homes.

“'Ethnic cleansing': Israel evicts 11 Palestinian families from Jerusalem neighbourhood Israeli forces have entered the neighbourhood of Silwan in occupied East Jerusalem to evict 11 Palestinians families from their homes”

Middle East Eye

B'Tselem reports that 90 families (700 individuals) in the specific Batan al-Hawa neighborhood are at immediate risk, while the Norwegian Refugee Council warns that over 1,000 more Palestinians across East Jerusalem face similar threats.

Human rights groups have characterized this systematic displacement as ethnic cleansing, noting that Israel appears to be exploiting the distraction of ongoing military operations against Iran to accelerate settlement expansion and demographic engineering in occupied Palestinian territories.

The forced displacement in Silwan occurs amid escalating violence by Israeli settlers across the occupied West Bank, where dozens of settlers have been engaged in rampages targeting Palestinian civilian infrastructure.

Video footage from March 21 showed settlers torching cars and houses in the villages of Jalud, Fandaqumiya, Silat ad-Dhahr and Qaryut, with residents attempting to evacuate those trapped inside burning buildings.

Al Jazeera

This coordinated settler violence, occurring alongside state-sanctioned evictions, represents a dual strategy of both legal and illegal methods to displace Palestinians from their homes and consolidate Israeli control over occupied Palestinian territories.