Israeli authorities are accelerating home demolitions and forced evictions of Palestinian residents in the Silwan district of occupied East Jerusalem, Human Rights Watch said today. The organisation said the forcible deportation or transfer of the population of an occupied territory within or outside the territory, unless justified on a temporary basis for the protection of the population itself or imperative military reasons, is a violation of international humanitarian law and amounts to a war crime.
Silwan lies south of Jerusalem’s Old City. Among its 12 neighbourhoods, al-Bustan and Batn al-Hawa have for decades been the primary focus of eviction and demolition campaigns led by Israeli authorities and settler organisations such as Ateret Cohanim. These campaigns intensified under cover of the hostilities in Gaza and, this year, Iran.
Of the 587 Palestinians displaced by demolitions since October 2023, a quarter were displaced during Israel’s war with Iran in March-April 2026, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination and Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
Over 2,000 people are at risk of forced displacement in Silwan, which, if not halted, will be one of the largest waves of expulsions in East Jerusalem since 1967, according to Ir Amim, an Israeli group that tracks government policies in Jerusalem.
“Israeli authorities are intensifying their longstanding illegal policy of emptying areas surrounding Jerusalem’s Old City of Palestinians and replacing them with Israeli settlers,” said Sarah Sanbar, acting Israel and Palestine researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Israeli efforts to change the demography of Jerusalem are war crimes, enabled by the impunity granted by Israel’s close allies.”
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Under the Fourth Geneva Convention, forcible transfers of residents of Occupied Territory are prohibited. The only exception is temporary evacuation of an area if necessary for the security of the population or imperative military reasons.
In its 2024 advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the Court found Israeli policies and practices, including its forcible evictions and extensive house demolitions in East Jerusalem, contrary to the prohibition of forcible transfer of a protected population under Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. The Court confirmed a transfer is “forcible” not only when it is achieved through physical force, but also when people have no choice but to leave. The ICJ further found that Israel’s practice of demolishing property for lack of a building permit amounts to prohibited discrimination. Under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, it is a war crime for an occupying power to deport or transfer all or part of the population within or outside the occupied territory.
Human Rights Watch has previously found that Israeli authorities intentionally caused the massive, deliberate, and long-term forced displacement and ethnic cleansing of Palestinian civilians in both Gaza and the West Bank, amounting to war crimes and crimes against humanity. In both cases, senior Israeli officials have declared their aim to expel and keep Palestinians out of parts of Gaza and the West Bank.
The continuing, accelerating violations against Palestinians in East Jerusalem is a direct consequence of Israel’s disregard for international law and impunity for ongoing violations, Human Rights Watch said. Other countries should impose targeted sanctions against individuals and organizations responsible, ensure accountability for war crimes, ban trade with settlements, and suspend preferential trade agreements with Israel.
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