EAST JERUSALEM — On a crisp April morning in the Ras al-Amud neighbourhood of Silwan, the sound of sledgehammers and crowbars echoed not from Israeli bulldozers, but from the hands of Palestinian brothers destroying the very walls that had sheltered their families for three decades.

The scene, which unfolded on April 11, 2026, was not an anomaly but a calculated routine in occupied East Jerusalem. Israeli authorities had forced a Jerusalem resident and his two brothers to self-demolish their houses, which together housed 25 family members, under the pretext of lacking construction permits.

According to the Jerusalem Governorate, the targeted properties included two two-story residential buildings of 200 square meters per floor, housing 12 and 8 family members respectively, alongside a separate 120-square-meter home for five more. The homes had reportedly stood for 30 years, yet Israeli authorities imposed fines of up to 280,000 shekels (approximately $90,000) on the homeowners.

“In total, 25 members from the three families were affected,” the Governorate stated, denouncing the measure as “part of a systematic plan targeting the Palestinian presence in the city, particularly in neighbourhoods surrounding Al-Aqsa Mosque”.

The April 11 incident is not isolated. In fact, it marks a grim acceleration of a policy that has reached unprecedented levels in 2025-2026. According to the Israeli Committee against House Demolitions (ICAHD), Israeli authorities demolished more than 460 residential buildings in East Jerusalem in 2025 alone, alongside more than 1,570 demolitions in the West Bank. This figure includes structures vital for living, such as agricultural structures, commercial establishments, schools, solar panels, and cisterns.

The Cruel Calculus Of Self-Demolition:

Behind the clinical term “self-demolition” lies a brutal economic coercion that forces Palestinians to become the agents of their own dispossession. The Israeli-controlled Jerusalem Municipality has perfected a system where victims must choose between two forms of destruction: demolish their homes themselves or pay exorbitant fees for municipal demolition crews.

“We were forced to start demolishing the house ourselves to avoid the municipality’s demolition fees, which can reach 100,000 shekels [$32,000],” Basema Dabash, 51, told Al Jazeera in March 2026, describing the demolition of her family’s home in Sur Baher. “We started by breaking down the inside of the house and sent the municipality photos to confirm that we had begun the demolition, but they demanded that we demolish it from the outside as soon as possible.”

The Dabash family’s ordeal illustrates the cruel efficiency of the system. Even after completing the demolition of the two houses where eight people, including three children, lived, they still faced a fine of 45,000 shekels ($14,600) to be paid in instalments until 2029.

This pattern repeats across East Jerusalem. On January 26, 2026, occupation authorities forced Jerusalemite Jamal Ghaith to self-demolish his home in the Wadi Yasul neighbourhood of Silwan. On February 14, Rami Al-Bakri demolished his 35-square-meter home in Beit Hanina, which he had built eight years earlier and where he lived with his newlywed wife. He had already paid fines totalling around 40,000 shekels, in addition to lawyer fees and licensing expenses.

The Permit Denial Machine:

The justification of “building without a permit” masks a discriminatory planning regime that makes legal construction virtually impossible for Palestinians. The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) reported in October 2025 that between 2016 and 2021, Palestinians in Area C submitted 2,550 requests for building permits. Only 24 were approved, a denial rate exceeding 99%. More recent data suggests the situation has only worsened, with some sources indicating that up to 95% of Palestinian building permit applications are rejected.

“Families are being stripped of homes, water and livelihoods in a calculated effort to drive them from their land and make way for settlements,” said Angelita Caredda, NRC’s Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa. “This is not accidental destruction. It is a deliberate policy of dispossession”.

By September 2025, Israeli authorities had demolished 1,288 structures over building permits, nearly five per day, including 138 funded by international aid. More than 1,400 Palestinians were displaced, and nearly 38,000 were affected through the loss of livelihood, agricultural, water and sanitation infrastructure.

A Record Year Of Displacement:

The demolition campaign is part of a broader displacement crisis that reached historic levels in 2025. According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), more than 37,000 Palestinians were displaced in the occupied West Bank in 2025, marking “the highest annual figure on record by the United Nations, and marks the ninth consecutive annual increase”.

The UN human rights office reported that more than 36,000 Palestinians were forcibly displaced in the 12-month period ending October 2025 amid intensified settlement activity and growing attacks by Israeli security forces and settlers. The report documented 1,732 incidents of settler violence, describing it as occurring “in a coordinated, strategic and largely unchallenged manner, with Israeli authorities playing the central role in directing, participating in or enabling this conduct”.

“The displacement in the occupied West Bank, which coincides with the extensive displacement of Palestinians in Gaza, at the hands of the Israeli military, appears to indicate a concerted Israeli policy of mass forcible transfer throughout the occupied territory, aimed at permanent displacement, raising concerns of ethnic cleansing,” the UN report stated.

In the first three months of 2026 alone, the number of Palestinians displaced in the context of settler violence and access restrictions reached 1,697, surpassing the entire year of 2025. OCHA reported that 38 communities have been emptied in this context since 2023.

The Demographic Engineering Of Jerusalem:

The demolition campaign operates in parallel with accelerated settlement expansion, revealing the demographic calculus behind the policy. In January 2026, Israeli authorities issued a major tender for the construction of 3,401 settlement units in the E1 area east of occupied Jerusalem. This followed the approval of the E1 plan in August 2025 after a postponement of nearly 30 years due to international pressure.

Palestinian officials warn that the E1 plan would “completely separate Jerusalem from its Palestinian surroundings” and undermine any realistic possibility of establishing a geographically contiguous Palestinian state.

In 2025 alone, Israeli authorities issued plans for a total of 10,098 new settlement units, marking an unprecedented escalation in settlement tenders. The UN report cited a major expansion of settlements, with nearly 37,000 housing units approved in East Jerusalem and more than 27,000 in the rest of the West Bank, along with 84 new outposts.

“This is about the Judaisation of Jerusalem, they want to pressure Palestinians to leave the city,” Arafat Shqeirat, whose cousins were forced to self-demolish their homes in Jabal al-Mukabber, told Al Jazeera. “This is an occupation; it has no mercy, no religion. They don’t care about elderly or young people; if they did, they wouldn’t be demolishing your home in the middle of winter. But no, they come at a time when people need to be indoors.”

The Toll On Communities:

The human cost extends far beyond statistics. On December 22, 2025, dozens of Jerusalem Municipality workers, Israel Police officers and Border Police officers demolished a four-story residential building in Wadi Qadum, East Jerusalem, claiming it was built without a permit. The building contained 12 apartments where 77 Palestinians lived, including 21 minors. The demolition left all of them without shelter.

In the Al-Bustan neighbourhood of Silwan, Palestinian activist Fakhri Abu Diab reported that 37 homes have been demolished in the area since October 7, 2023, while others have received demolition or evacuation notices. “It was a very intense operation,” Abu Diab told The New Arab after Israeli forces demolished walls and fences surrounding several homes on February 11, 2026. “They destroyed the walls and fences of homes belonging to six Palestinian families”.

“Our very existence in this area is what is being targeted,” Abu Diab said. “The places where our homes stand, where our bedrooms are, will become car parks or a park. This is part of a broader plan to impose sovereignty, dominance, and control over East Jerusalem through the use of force. The goal is to empty this city”.

Legal Challenges And International Inaction:

The demolition policy continues despite clear international legal prohibitions. The International Court of Justice declared Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory illegal in a landmark July 2024 opinion and called for the evacuation of all settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The UN General Assembly subsequently gave Israel 12 months to withdraw and called on states not to recognise annexation or aid violations.

“Instead of ending its occupation, Israel is entrenching it and accelerating its annexation agenda,” Caredda said. “Over 150 states have recognised Palestine, yet the land that state needs to survive is disappearing. Governments must urgently act to protect Palestinians from the relentless erosion of their rights”.

The International Criminal Court has faced criticism for its handling of the situation. In February 2026, international lawmakers and experts slammed the ICC’s refusal to open an investigation into Israeli crimes against Palestinians, despite having substantial documentation and evidence at its disposal.

“Israeli crimes are being met with silence from the international community,” said Mohammed Jamil, director of the Arab Organisation for Human Rights in the UK. “The crimes committed in Palestine need a court similar to the court that was established to investigate crimes in Yugoslavia and Croatia”.

However, more recent developments suggest potential movement. In March 2026, the ICC’s chief prosecutor launched an investigation into Israeli war crimes committed in the Palestinian territories, focusing on military actions and settlement construction on lands occupied in 1967. The investigation raises the possibility of arrest warrants being issued against Israeli officials suspected of war crimes.

A Policy Of Forced Transfer:

Human rights organisations are unequivocal in their assessment. B’Tselem, the Israeli human rights organisation, states: “As part of its efforts to expel Palestinians and carry out ethnic cleansing, Israel enforces a policy that disrupts every aspect of life for Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem and is designed to push them out of their homes and city. This policy includes denying permits to build in accordance with the residents’ needs and carrying out home demolitions”.

The Israeli Committee against House Demolitions (ICAHD) has documented that Israeli authorities condition Palestinians to either demolish their properties themselves or have the authorities do so. “In an attempt to avoid having to pay the high fee of the Israeli authorities’ demolition operation and additional high fines, many Palestinians are forced to self-demolish”.

For the 25 family members displaced in Ras al-Amud on April 11, the future remains uncertain. Like thousands before them, they now join the ranks of displaced Palestinians in their own city, searching for rental housing in a market where prices are inflated, and options are limited. The homes that sheltered three generations now lie in rubble, destroyed not by enemy hands, but by their own, in a cruel twist of occupation that forces victims to become the instruments of their own dispossession.

As the international community debates resolutions and courts deliberate jurisdiction, the demolition orders continue to arrive. Each notice represents not just a building permit denied, but a family’s life disrupted, a community’s fabric torn, and a city’s demographic character systematically altered. The question that hangs over East Jerusalem is not whether more homes will fall, but whether the world will finally recognise this policy for what it is: a systematic campaign of forced displacement designed to empty a city of its indigenous population.

Source: Multiple News Agencies