11 Palestinian families evicted after court found Jews owned E. Jerusalem land their homes were built on before 1948

Eleven Palestinian families were evicted from their homes in the Batan al-Hawa section of East Jerusalem’s Silwan neighborhood on Wednesday, following a Supreme Court ruling from last year determining that the land their their houses were built on was owned by Jews before 1948.

The ruling said that because Jews owned the land before Jordan occupied East Jerusalem in 1948, the year of Israel’s War of Independence, their ownership must be transferred to Ateret Cohanim, a right-wing foundation that works to strengthen the Jewish presence in East Jerusalem and petitioned to receive the properties.

Palestinian families had petitioned against the eviction, but their appeals were rejected late last year in several rulings that ordered 157 residents of the neighborhood to leave their homes.

Yosef Basbous, whose family was among those evicted on Wednesday, said in a statement, “Our family was expelled in 1948 and dispersed in refugee camps in the West Bank. I arrived in Silwan with my parents more than 60 years ago. I built this house stone by stone, brick by brick, nail by nail.”

“The police say they are implementing the court’s decisions in accordance with the law,” he continued. “But what kind of law is this that can expel me, who has been here for more than 60 years?”

The Peace Now settlement watchdog characterized the evictions as “ethnic cleansing.”

Breaking: ongoing Ethnic Cleansing operations in Silwan, Jerusalem: large numbers of Israeli Occupation Forces moved in to forcibly displace families from a dozen homes and immediately replace them with imported Jewish Settlers though "Ateret Cohanim" settler organisation pic.twitter.com/6Y8Afjb3AB

— Jalal ???? (@JalalAK_jojo) March 25, 2026

“The government and a discriminatory legal system are expelling an entire Palestinian community and replacing it” with Jewish nationalists, the left-wing group said. “This is happening in the Jerusalem of 2026, and it is a stain that will not be erased from Israel.”

The eviction orders target residents of the hilltop neighborhood south of Jerusalem’s Old City, and are based on a 1970 law that allows Jews who lost property before the establishment of Israel to reclaim it.

Israeli courts have not denied that Palestinians in Silwan had rights to their homes. In some cases, they even ruled that the homes had been legally purchased by the Palestinian families.

However, the courts decided that the deed held by the Benvenisti Trust, a Jewish endowment, from the late 19th century took precedence and justified the evictions. Ateret Cohanim obtained trusteeship over the endowment in the early 2000s.

כוחות משטרה ומג״ב פשטו היום על שכונת בטן אל־הווא שבסילוואן וגירשו 13 משפחות פלסטיניות מבתיהן, בתים שבהם חיו מספר דורות ועשרות שנים. את הבתים תפסה עמותת המתנחלים "עטרת כהנים"' שמובילה מאמצים לייהוד השכונה ומיישבת בבתים אלו משפחות מתנחלים.

אל הכוחות הישראליים הצטרף מפקד המחוז… pic.twitter.com/tnyrKgxBMT

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— עיר עמים (@IrAmim) March 25, 2026

Israeli authorities rely on Ottoman-era documents indicating that Jews of Yemeni origin once lived on the land and left during Palestinian revolts between 1929 and 1936.

The left-wing B’Tselem NGO said the eviction “marks the beginning of a large wave of displacement affecting around 2,200 people in Silwan who face imminent risk of forced displacement … (including) 90 families (700 individuals) in Batan al-Hawa.”

Israeli authorities have evicted many Palestinian families from the area in recent years, and more families await the enforcement of eviction orders.

Homes that have been vacated are often demolished or transferred to right-wing Jewish nationalists, who frequently mark their presence with blue metal Stars of David, making the new occupants highly visible in East Jerusalem.

In Silwan, hundreds of the Jewish activists live among around 50,000 Palestinians.