Israel’s Ben Gvir oversees demolition of Palestinian homes in occupied East Jerusalem
Fayha Shalash reports in Middle East Eye on 6 October 2026:
Israeli minister Itamar Ben Gvir oversaw the demolition of a Palestinian-owned residential building in occupied East Jerusalem on Tuesday, leaving around 70 people homeless, most of them women and children.
After riding a bulldozer at the demolition site, Ben Gvir wrote on X that the state of Israel had reclaimed the land. “The bulldozers of governance never rest for a moment,” the national security minister wrote. “That’s the only way it works.”
Fayez Khalfawi, who lived in the building, said residents were caught off guard when Israeli bulldozers surrounded the building at around 3am. Soldiers stormed the apartments, forcing open doors without knocking, and forcibly evicted residents, who were prevented from retrieving their belongings. “Women and children were asleep and were terrified when the apartments were stormed,” Khalfawi told Middle East Eye. “Some women rushed out without headscarves due to the shock of the raid, while the children screamed and cried inconsolably.”
According to Khalfawi, the demolition spared nothing. The entire building was razed, and the contents of every apartment were destroyed. “We are searching through the rubble for our clothes, hoping we might be able to retrieve them,” he added.
During the demolition, Ben Gvir arrived at the site flanked by heavily armed police. He climbed into a bulldozer and filmed a video from inside it, as campaigning intensifies ahead of the upcoming Israeli elections later this month.
“This morning, I arrived together with the governance bulldozers in the al-Tur neighbourhood of East Jerusalem, to make sure on the ground that my policy is being implemented,” he said on X.
Al-Tur is a neighborhood on the Mount of Olives approximately 1 km east of the Old City of Jerusalem.
“Over the past year and a half, we have demolished 10,000 illegal structures and returned to the state an area equivalent in size to Tel Aviv and Givatayim combined,” he claimed.
The five-storey building in the al-Tur neighbourhood housed around 70 people across 10 apartments. Khalfawi said the families received a final notice to leave on Monday, giving them less than a day to remove their furniture.