Israel is reviving a 58-year-old government order to seize vital Palestinian properties in Jerusalem
The Sabil Bab al-Silsilah, an Ottoman-era public fountain and water distribution structure located near the Bab al-Silsilah gate of the al-Aqsa Mosque compound in the Old City of Jerusalem
Qassam Muaddi reports in Mondoweiss on 21 May 2026:
Another Palestinian neighborhood in Jerusalem is in Israel’s crosshairs after the Israeli government reopened a 58-year-old decision to seize the strategic street of Bab al-Silsila in the Old City of Jerusalem, which is adjacent to the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound. Many of the properties slated for seizure are centuries old, dating back to the Ottoman, Mamluk, and Ayyubite periods.
The decision was revived after the Israeli Ministry of Heritage recommended on Sunday that the state-owned Company for the Reconstruction and Development of the Jewish Quarter be given the green light to take over some 50 properties in Bab Al-Silsila. It is based on a 1968 decision made by the Israeli government to expand the Jewish Quarter in Jerusalem from its original five dunams to 116.
The 1968 decision detailed actions that Israel had already undertaken the prior year, including the demolition and forced displacement of the Magharbeh (Moroccan) neighborhood in the early days following the occupation of the city in June 1967. It also included the confiscation of Palestinian properties in Bab Al-Silsila for the benefit of the Company for the Reconstruction and Development of the Jewish Quarter, which was founded in July of that year.
The importance of Bab al-Silsila Street derives from its immediate proximity to the al-Aqsa Mosque compound, which has been a political flashpoint in Jerusalem over the past decade in light of frequent and repeated settler incursions into the religious site, considered the third-holiest site in Islam.
“My family owns a house in Bab Al-Silsila, which dates from the Mamlouk era, and is also an Islamic endowment,” a Palestinian from Jerusalem, who asked not to be named, told Mondoweiss. “Currently, there are 60 people from multiple generations of the family living in the building,” he noted.
The resident, who was six years old when Israel occupied the eastern part of Jerusalem, recalled that “hundreds of families were forced to leave their homes.” He also remembered that “I heard from my parents and uncles that before the Nakba we had Jewish neighbors and friends.”