In a renewed episode of the ongoing demolition policy targeting the Palestinian presence in occupied Jerusalem, Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) demolish a residential building on Monday morning in the Wadi Qaddum neighbourhood of Ras al-Amud, in the town of Silwan, south of Al-Aqsa Mosque, leaving dozens of Palestinian residents forcibly displaced.
Local sources reported that the demolished building comprised 13 housing units and was home to around 100 people, including women and children. A large contingent of occupation forces stormed the neighbourhood in the early morning hours, imposed a tight military cordon on the area, and deployed several bulldozers before proceeding with the demolition.
The sources added that the IOF assaulted a number of residents while besieging the building and obstructed attempts by families to retrieve their belongings. A young man and a minor were also arrested in the vicinity during the demolition.
The demolition was carried out under the pretext of “lack of building permits”, within a reality in which the occupation authorities impose severe, and often virtually impossible, restrictions on Palestinians seeking construction permits in occupied Jerusalem. This leaves thousands of homes and structures under constant threat of demolition. This pretext is widely viewed as an administrative tool used to entrench a coercive reality that neither provides housing alternatives nor accommodates the natural growth of the Palestinian population.
The demolition of homes and the displacement of their residents in occupied territory constitutes a grave violation of international humanitarian law, which prohibits the extensive destruction of private property unless rendered absolutely necessary by military necessity, which does not apply to demolitions of an administrative or planning nature. Such practices also contravene the fundamental right to adequate housing and directly undermine human dignity and social stability for affected individuals and families.
Home demolitions in occupied Jerusalem form part of a systematic policy aimed at reducing the Palestinian presence, by forcing residents into coerced displacement while expanding settlements and consolidating the occupation’s demographic control over the city and its surroundings. This approach results in forced changes to the population structure, in clear violation of international legal norms that prohibit forcible transfer of populations or permanent alterations in occupied territories.
These violations coincide with a broader escalation across the occupied West Bank, where attacks by occupation forces and settlers against Palestinians and their property continue, amid an overall context marked by intensified use of force and rising numbers of killed, wounded, and detained individuals, in the absence of any genuine accountability for the violations committed.
The persistence of demolition operations underscores that what is unfolding in Jerusalem is not a series of isolated measures, but an integrated policy targeting both land and people, placing thousands of Palestinian families under the constant threat of permanent displacement within a coercive legal reality devoid of even the minimum standards of justice and protection.
