Three Palestinian families were forcibly displaced on Sunday from their homes in the Batn al-Hawa neighborhood of Silwan, south of Al-Aqsa Mosque, in the latest episode of Israel’s systematic campaign to uproot Palestinians from occupied East Jerusalem and replace them with illegal settlers.

The Jerusalem Governorate said the forced evictions were carried out under pressure and court-backed decisions issued by Israeli occupation authorities in favor of the extremist settler organization Ateret Cohanim, which has spearheaded efforts to seize Palestinian properties around the Old City.

Among those expelled was Jerusalemite resident Um Nasser al-Rajbi and her children. According to the Governorate, her son Nasser al-Rajbi was compelled to evacuate his home along with his family under coercion, despite the severe medical condition of his children. Ambulance crews were forced to transfer his 29-year-old son Awad, who is in a complete coma, as well as his 24-year-old daughter, who lives with a disability.

The eviction campaign also targeted Um Nasser’s second son, Aed al-Rajbi, and his family, adding to the growing list of Palestinian households torn apart by Israeli displacement policies.

The Governorate stressed that these expulsions are not isolated incidents but part of an ongoing, deliberate policy of forced displacement aimed at emptying Batn al-Hawa of its Palestinian residents. Since June 2024 alone, Israeli occupation forces have enforced eviction orders against at least 13 homes in the neighborhood.

Further evictions loom. The building belonging to Kaed al-Rajbi faces imminent danger after Israeli authorities imposed January 5, 2026, as a final deadline for families to vacate their homes, according to Zuhair al-Rajbi, an official with the Batn al-Hawa neighborhood committee.

Al-Rajbi said the Israeli Supreme Court is currently reviewing five legal cases involving 26 homes sheltering around 250 Palestinians. Despite pending appeals, residents fear the court will side once again with settler organizations, paving the way for a wider wave of expulsions.

At the heart of the campaign is Ateret Cohanim, which bases its takeover claims on alleged Jewish ownership of roughly five dunums and 200 square meters of land dating back to 1881. These claims, first advanced in 2015, have dragged dozens of Palestinian families into years-long legal battles within Israel’s court system.

Palestinian officials and rights groups have long denounced these proceedings as fundamentally unjust, noting that Palestinians are forced to defend their homes in Israeli courts that operate as instruments of the occupation. At the same time, Palestinians are systematically denied the right to reclaim properties they owned prior to 1948, exposing the discriminatory nature of Israel’s legal framework in Jerusalem.

Batn al-Hawa, located just 400 meters from Al-Aqsa Mosque and home to around 10,000 Palestinians, has become one of the most aggressively targeted areas in Silwan. The neighborhood is central to Israeli efforts to tighten colonial control around the holy mosque and connect a chain of illegal settler outposts encircling the Old City.

Palestinian officials warn that the forced displacement of families in Silwan amounts to ethnic cleansing carried out through legal manipulation and settler violence, in clear violation of international law. As evictions continue, residents fear that entire communities will be erased to serve Israel’s colonization agenda in occupied Jerusalem. (ILKHA)