Israel steps up evictions of Palestinians from East Jerusalem

In Silwan in East Jerusalem, south of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, Kayed Rajabi and his neighbors have been handed eviction orders in favor of an Israeli settler organization which has already taken over parts of the Palestinian district.

Rajabi’s home is surrounded by buildings that have raised large Israeli flags – a sign they are owned by settlers, who he said began buying homes in 2004, and have obtained about 40 buildings in Silwan now, many via forced evictions.

Settler group Ateret Cohanim had offered to buy him and other Palestinians out, he said, but most had refused.

He said he was among 32 families in the neighborhood who have now been ordered to leave, with him and his brothers given until the end of Ramadan – mid-March – to depart under an order from Israel’s Supreme Court that he showed Reuters.

“They want to force me out of the house I was born in, where my eyes first opened to life,” said Rajabi, explaining that his family had lived there since 1967 and bought the land from a Jordanian officer.

Daniel Luria, the executive director of Ateret Cohanim, called Palestinians in Silwan “illegal squatters”, saying the land was owned by Yemeni Jews before 1929 and that moving back was rectifying a historical injustice. Rajabi said that account was untrue.

The Supreme Court did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

Palestinians seek East Jerusalem, which Israel captured in a 1967 war, for a future state and say that leaving their homes there could put an end to their hopes for ever. Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has said the aim is to ‘bury’ the idea of a Palestinian state.

Israel deems all of Jerusalem its capital – a status not recognised internationally – and has encouraged Jewish settlement of predominantly Palestinian areas. Settler incursions, sometimes violent, have ramped up since the Hamas attack on Israel in October 2023 triggered the Gaza war.

Silwan is particularly contentious due to its proximity to the Al-Aqsa Mosque, a longtime flashpoint of Israeli-Palestinian tensions.

Rajabi said that Ateret Cohanim had offered him a blank check to leave, an offer he refused. “I wouldn’t sell them even a grain of soil. They told me, ‘Put whatever number you want and we’re ready to pay’,” he said.

He said that some people in the neighborhood had sold their homes, but that most families had refused.

Luria said that Ateret Cohanim had offered Silwan residents compensation for leaving. “This is part of an unfolding Zionist dream,” said Luria of the purchase of homes in Silwan.

Numerous UN Security Council resolutions have called on Israel to halt all settlement activity, but successive Israeli governments have said settlements are critical to the country’s security. If Palestinians refuse orders to leave, armed police go in to evict them and diggers demolish their homes.

Rajabi said that with the high prices for rent in Jerusalem, he does not know where he and his family will go.

“People will live in the streets,” he said.