Press Releases
Bethlehem, 24 December 2025
The Israeli colonial-apartheid regime manufactures forced displacement in Jerusalem through a coercive environment in which home demolitions, the systematic denial of building permits, and constant legal and administrative pressure function collectively to push Palestinians out of their homes and neighborhoods. These practices are part of the ongoing Nakba and a long-standing strategy to dispossess Palestinians, fragment communities, and render their continued existence in the city increasingly untenable. The recent demolitions in Silwan and Jabal al-Mukabbir, which both took place within the same week, provide clear snapshots of what is happening all over Mandatory Palestine as the Israeli regime imposes its Decisive Plan, the blueprint for its colonial domination.
Silwan occupies a central position in the Israeli regime’s intensified assault on Jerusalem. Situated close to the Old City, the area has become a primary target of colonial expansion driven by a Zionist narrative. Since the early 1990s, the Israeli regime has enabled colonial organizations such as El’Ad and Ateret Cohanim to implant and expand a colonial presence in Silwan.
On Monday, 22 December 2025, Israeli forces’ bulldozers demolished a large residential building in the Wadi Qaddum area of Ras al-Amoud, in the town of Silwan, south of the Old City. The demolition forcibly displaced 13 Palestinian families, approximately 100 people, including dozens of children and women. The demolition was carried out under heavy military protection, with Israeli forces sealing off the area, assaulting residents, firing stun grenades to disperse protesters and solidarity groups, and arresting two Palestinians from the vicinity. The building, comprising 13 apartments, had stood since 2011, and with the demolition occurring at dawn, it denied families even the chance to remove their belongings.
Moreover, on Wednesday, 24 December 2025, Israeli forces demolished two homes in Al-Sal’a, Jabal al-Mukaber. Jabal al-Mukaber is located southeast of Jerusalem’s Old City, and is a densely populated Palestinian neighborhood and a key target for the Israeli regime. The demolitions, carried out with heavy machinery and accompanied by Israeli forces, forcibly displaced two families, totaling nine people, further illustrate the coercive environment systematically designed to drive Palestinians from their neighborhoods.
Over many years, Palestinians' building permit requests have been systematically rejected, demonstrating how the Israeli regime’s planning and zoning system functions as a deliberate mechanism to criminalize Palestinian construction and facilitate forced displacement.
The demolitions in Silwan and Jabal al-Mukaber are part of a broader pattern of escalating attacks across Jerusalem. As of 22 December, since the beginning of the year, Israeli forces have demolished more than 464 buildings and structures across the Jerusalem governorate, including 229 demolitions within the city itself, many of which were carried out as forced self-demolitions imposed on Palestinian families under threat of punitive fines. Together, these policies aim to empty Jerusalem of its Palestinian population and replace it with Israeli colonizers.
Across all of Mandatory Palestine, the Israeli regime is executing a unified, systematic plan to dismantle Palestinian presence and resistance, sever territorial and social continuity, and eliminate the possibility of return. This strategy reflects the framework of the “Decisive Plan,” which seeks full colonial control over the West Bank and Jerusalem. Since 2022, and especially after 7 October 2023, the Israeli regime has operationalized this plan through the expansion of colonies, forced displacement, home demolitions, mass arrests, destruction of refugee camps, and the suppression of Palestinian political, economic, and social life. The situation in Silwan and Jabal al-Mukaber illustrates how this blueprint is being enforced on the ground, with Jerusalem becoming a focal point of dispossession, enabled by states’ continued failure to uphold their obligations under international law and their ongoing complicity.
Halting the Decisive Plan and ending the Israeli ongoing crimes of forced displacement and transfer, colonization, and apartheid requires the full imposition of economic, military, and political sanctions necessary to begin the process of decolonization. Without principled international action, Palestinian presence in Jerusalem and across Palestine will continue to be erased.