How Israel wants to expel Palestinians from occupied East Jerusalem

• Israel wants to isolate East Jerusalem from the West Bank and impose more restrictions to reduce the number of Palestinians, says British-Palestinian writer and researcher Emad Moussa

• “Instead of using force… Israel has actually designed and implemented a network of laws and policies that support its settler-colonial project,” says academic Osama Risheq.

ISTANBUL

For months, as death and destruction rained down on Gaza, analysts drew the world’s attention to Israel’s simultaneous war against the other Palestinian territories, the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.

The plight of Palestinians in the West Bank has drawn international attention as Israel launched its largest military operation there in more than two decades, inflicting wanton destruction of property and infrastructure in the northern cities of Jenin, Tulkarm and Tubas.

Its forces have killed and wounded dozens of Palestinians over the past ten days, adding to the more than 6,000 casualties in the occupied territory since the start of the Gaza war on October 7.

In occupied East Jerusalem, however, experts say Israel has taken a different approach, using the Gaza war to accelerate the “silent displacement” of Palestinians in order to reshape its demographic landscape.

The strategy implemented is based on four main elements: demolitions, evictions, land confiscation and the expansion of illegal settlements.

It is designed specifically to isolate East Jerusalem from the West Bank, imposing new restrictions on Palestinian residents and advancing Israel’s “colonial” ambitions.

“All forced displacement measures have escalated drastically since October 7, and Israel is well known for exploiting such situations to advance its colonial efforts,” said Tamara Tamimi, a Palestinian policy researcher at the Al-Shabaka think tank who lives in East Jerusalem.

“Israel has exploited its genocidal attack on Gaza to advance settler-colonialism in other key strategic areas, particularly Jerusalem and Area C in the rest of the West Bank.”

A crucial player in this “great escalation” is the illegal settler movement and associated organizations in key strategic areas of Jerusalem, she said.

Emad Moussa, a British writer and researcher of Palestinian origin, said Israel’s actions in East Jerusalem are part of its “demographic game”, explaining that Israel is achieving two main goals with the expansion of its illegal settlements.

“First, it is necessary to isolate the city from its Palestinian environment in the West Bank. Second, in doing so, it is imposing more restrictions on the Palestinians in Jerusalem and, slowly but surely, reducing their numbers,” he said.

“Silent measures”

East Jerusalem, home to more than 350,000 Palestinians and about 230,000 Israeli settlers, is revered by millions for its historic holy sites.

It has long been at the heart of the Palestinian struggle, as Palestinians consider it the capital of any future Palestinian state, while Israel claims Jerusalem in its entirety as its capital.

In 1967, during its war with Egypt, Jordan and Syria, Israel invaded and occupied Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Israel also unilaterally “annexed” East Jerusalem, incorporating it and a surrounding area of ​​64 square kilometers (about 25 square miles) into the boundaries of the Israeli municipality of Jerusalem.

In a landmark opinion last July, the International Court of Justice declared that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories was illegal and must end “as expeditiously as possible.”

Osama Risheq, a researcher and legal advisor at Al-Quds University, described Israel’s strategy as a “triangle… (concerning) how to acquire a larger amount of land with a smaller number of people, but without using force.”

The annexation of East Jerusalem “was the first step,” he said.

“Instead of using force against Palestinians in Jerusalem, Israel has actually designed and implemented a network of laws and policies that support its settler-colonial project,” added Risheq, who also lives in East Jerusalem.

Tamimi agreed with this assessment, stressing that “all these silent measures are part of Israel’s strategy to continue maximizing the acquisition of lands home to the smallest percentage of Palestinians.”

“Another key aspect that we really need to focus on, and this is very dangerous, is the imposition of a coercive environment to drive out Palestinians ‘voluntarily’ because they are living on their own land,” she said.

Confiscation and demolition

Israel has used several laws to confiscate Palestinian property in East Jerusalem, particularly the Absentee Property Law of 1950, Risheq said.

The law applies only to Palestinians and gives Israel the power to confiscate property and assets that Palestinians were forced to abandon when they were expelled in 1948.

It was adopted in March 1950 by the government of David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister, and is still used today to target Palestinians.

Three months after the law was enacted, a special unit was created “to take control of the confiscated properties and hand them over to settler organizations,” Risheq said.

At least 70 percent of all Palestinian property confiscated by Israel was confiscated through this law, he added.

Risheq said the recent number of demolitions in the West Bank and East Jerusalem was the highest in the past ten years.

Between October 7, 2023 and August 26 of this year, Israeli authorities “demolished, confiscated or forcibly demolished 1,446 Palestinian structures in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, displacing more than 3,300 Palestinians, including approximately 1,430 children,” according to the UN human rights office.

This figure “is more than double that of the same period before October 7,” he said.

These demolitions are being ordered based on violations of Israeli zoning and planning laws, Risheq explained.

“These laws are clever. They don’t tell Palestinians they can’t build. They say they can build, but to do so, you have to submit 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 documents, which ultimately makes it impossible for Jerusalemites to apply for a building permit,” he said.

Many Palestinians in East Jerusalem are forced to build homes without permits because Israel has set impossible approval conditions and refuses to grant them, he said.

This includes providing land rights documents, which most Jerusalemites do not have because “in general… only 10 percent of all Palestinians have written land rights,” he said.

Then there is the cost factor, as a simple permit application for “a 200 square meter apartment would cost about $40,000,” he added.

“Imagine a Jerusalemite paying that amount of money, knowing that 95 percent of building permits applied for by Palestinians since 1967 have been rejected,” he said.

“In addition to this, Israel has actually expropriated more than 30% of the 70 kilometers that constitute East Jerusalem as public interest territories, so that Palestinians are not allowed to build in these areas. Another 30% has been confiscated for settlements.”

In total, he said, there is an area of ​​about 14 kilometers (about 9 miles) where Palestinians are allowed to build.

This area, already in 1967, was already occupied by more than 80% of buildings, he added.

Expansion of colonies

All Israeli settlements are considered illegal under international law, but that has not stopped Israel from trying to expand them by seizing more Palestinian land.

“Israel’s construction of settlements is not new. The speed at which these settlements are built and the number of their units are often linked to the political situation in the region and have little to do with who is in power in Israel – Labor or Likud – or with the so-called ‘natural growth’ of the Jewish population,” said Moussa, the author.

The British daily The Guardian reported in April that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government “has accelerated settlement construction across occupied East Jerusalem, with more than 20 projects totaling thousands of homes having been approved or advanced since the start of the Gaza war.”

According to the Israeli human rights organization Ir Amim, these are the first settlement plans to be fully approved by the Israeli government since 2012.

The new settlement plan is expected to include 1,792 housing units, which will be built on land belonging to the Sur Baher neighborhood in East Jerusalem.

“Now in East Jerusalem, wherever you turn your head, you will find a settlement,” Risheq said.

He mentioned the E1 settlement in the occupied West Bank, saying it would displace more than 5,000 people from their land.

The main goal of all this is to “create facts on the ground and take control of a large area of ​​Jerusalem and the Jordan Valley,” he said.

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