‘Ethnic cleansing’: Israel evicts 11 Palestinian families from Jerusalem neighbourhood
Employees of the Israeli authorities remove the belongings of a Palestinian home, in the neighbourhood of Silwan in East Jerusalem, on 25 March 2026
Alex MacDonald reports in Middle East Eye on 25 March 2026:
Israeli forces have entered the neighbourhood of Silwan in occupied East Jerusalem to evict 11 Palestinians families from their homes. According to locals and rights groups, 13 Palestinian apartments were seized in Silwan on Wednesday.
Police escorted Israeli settlers from the Ateret Cohanim organisation – who advocate settlement in Palestinian neighbourhoods of Jerusalem – into the Batn al-Hawa area of Silwan.
Video footage showed settlers throwing furniture out of apartment windows and raising the Israeli flag above the buildings.
According to Israeli rights group B’tselem, around 2,200 people in Silwan are facing the imminent threat of forced displacement.
“The ethnic cleansing in East Jerusalem is happening now! Large Israeli forces entered the Silwan neighborhood today, 25 March, to evict 11 Palestinian families from their homes,” the group wrote on Instagram.
They said the Israeli government was using the distraction of the war on Iran to relocate more settlers into territory in Palestinian areas captured in 1967, including East Jerusalem and the West Bank.
“This is the reality of systematic, institutionalized violence and a clear manifestation of an Israeli policy aimed at engineering the demographic balance and ‘Judaizing’ the neighborhood by exploiting discriminatory laws,” wrote B’tselem.
“These measures are designed to expand Israeli presence and control over one of the most politically and religiously sensitive areas in the region, serving as a crucial component of the broader ethnic cleansing currently unfolding across the West Bank.”