Eight Palestinian families in East Jerusalem face demolition orders by the end of May, the highest monthly number tracked by Ir Amim. Fakhri Abu Diab, an East Jerusalem activist whose home was demolished in 2024, said the homes will be taken by settlers or destroyed, leaving families with nowhere to go. The families pursued legal challenges, but no legal process remains to stop the demolitions. The demolitions rely on the Legal and Administrative Matters Law from 1970, which allows Jewish families or property owners who lost property in Jerusalem before 1948 to petition to reclaim title. Palestinians expelled in 1948 have no equivalent right under Israeli law. Settler nonprofits Ateret Cohanim and Elad use this law and a defunct land trust to assert claims over homes and land that many families purchased legally under Israeli law.
"Eight Palestinian homes are set to be demolished by the end of May - the highest number in a single month, according to the Israeli nonprofit Ir Amim since it began tracking such demolitions. "Soon, these will all be gone," said Fakhri Abu Diab, a longtime East Jerusalem activist whose own home was demolished in 2024, gesturing at the homes lining the valley walls. "They will be taken by settlers or destroyed, and then we will have nowhere to go.""
"The eight families had engaged in a protracted legal struggle to fight the orders, but as Ir Amim international outreach coordinator Tess Miller confirmed, "there is no longer any legal process underway that could stop the demolitions. All potential legal remedies have been exhausted.""
"The legal framework driving the demolitions relies on two laws. The first is the Legal and Administrative Matters Law, which came into force in 1970. The law holds that Jewish families or property owners who lost property, often due to anti-Jewish pogroms in Jerusalem before the creation of the State of Israel in 1948, are entitled to petition the state to reclaim title to such property. Palestinians forcibly expelled during the 1948 war have no equivalent right under Israeli law to return or reclaim lost property."
"Ateret Cohanim and Elad, two settler nonprofits, rely on this law and a defunct land trust to assert their claim. They have waged a decades-long legal campaign to displace families from homes and land that the families, in most cases, legally purchased under Israeli law."
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