Government forms team to draft plan for confiscation of Old City properties; Arab residents at risk of eviction

The government has decided to establish an inter-ministerial team to assess the possibility of confiscating properties in a sensitive area of the Old City of Jerusalem, putting Arab residents at risk of eviction.

The team will gauge how to expropriate dozens of properties along Chain Gate Street, which in Hebrew is called HaShalshelet Street. The alley serves as the Jewish Quarter’s northern perimeter and ultimately leads to the Temple Mount/Al-Aqsa compound.

The government decision comes at the initiative of the Jerusalem Affairs and Heritage Ministry, currently headed by Likud lawmaker Yariv Levin. It is one of several resolutions pegged to Jerusalem Day, celebrated last week from Thursday to Friday evening.

The inter-ministerial team, which will be led by the director general of the Jerusalem Affairs and Heritage Ministry, has a year to submit an actionable plan to the government, Channel 12 reports.

The decision is meant to further the “development and strengthening of the Israeli capital” and “exercise control over the [Jewish] Quarter in its entirety,” Levin’s ministry says in a statement.

According to Channel 12, the step could lead to the confiscation of roughly 50 buildings and the eventual eviction of the Muslim families residing there to make way for Jewish tenants.

The report notes that the prospect of seizing properties on Chain Gate Street — a sensitive area due to its proximity to the Temple Mount — encountered resistance from officials in the Finance Ministry, who argued the move could spark international opposition.

Aviv Tatarsky, a researcher for Ir Amim, an NGO that advocates for Palestinian Jerusalemites, says that the prospective confiscation of property on the street would be “an aggressive step.”

“On one hand, nothing is going to happen at the present moment, but on the other hand, it attests that this is what the government wants,” he tells The Times of Israel. “It basically means that wherever the government wants, it can take and expropriate Palestinian property.”

A source in the Jerusalem Ministry tells Channel 12 that the territory belongs to the State of Israel “on paper” after Israel issued expropriation notices upon capturing the Old City in the Six-Day War. The notices were reportedly based on the British Mandate-era Land Ordinance of 1943, which regulates the expropriation of land for public purposes.

The street, in addition to leading to the Temple Mount, is home to several well-known Palestinian institutions including the Khalidi Library, founded as a public library under Ottoman rule in 1900, as well as several Muslim mausoleums. During the late Ottoman period, a mix of Jewish and Muslim families lived on the street.