Palestinians says Israel is demolishing homes near Jerusalem, displacing hundreds

Palestinians say Israel has demolished hundreds of homes near Jerusalem, displacing hundreds of Palestinians as new Jewish settlements are greenlit in the West Bank.

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

People have been tearing down buildings in East Jerusalem. Israeli authorities sometimes demolish those buildings and sometimes make the owners do it. In total, more than 460 buildings owned by Palestinians have come down this year. East Jerusalem is the mostly Palestinian area that Israel captured after a 1967 war and that Palestinians envision as the capital of a future Palestinian state. NPR's Hadeel Al-Shalchi is in Tel Aviv. Hi there.

HADEEL AL-SHALCHI, BYLINE: Hello.

INSKEEP: What has been happening in East Jerusalem?

AL-SHALCHI: I mean, let's start with the latest. Yesterday, Israeli bulldozers showed up at a four-story building in the Silwan neighborhood of East Jerusalem and tore the entire thing down. The Palestinian authority said a hundred people are now homeless. We talked to the head of the Silwan neighborhood committee. And he said that people, including their children, were sleeping on the street last night. Now, rights groups are saying that this was the largest demolition carried out this year, but it's something that happens routinely in East Jerusalem. And it's really ramped up since the war in Gaza began in 2023. According to the United Nations, about 500 Palestinians have been displaced in East Jerusalem just this year because of these demolitions. Over 240 were children.

INSKEEP: Why would these demolitions be happening?

AL-SHALCHI: So Israel says it has to demolish these buildings because they're, quote, "illegal" and that Palestinians don't have the right building permits. But, you know, some say that the whole permit system is set up to discriminate against Palestinians, that it's highly restrictive, making it kind of impossible to obtain these permits. The thing is also, a lot of these times these demolitions are carried out by Palestinian residents themselves, like you were saying, because if they don't, then they face huge fines and legal pressures. I spoke to Yoni Mizrachi with Peace Now. That's an Israeli organization which advocates for a two-state solution. He says the Israeli government never came up with a plan to organize Palestinian construction in East Jerusalem.

YONI MIZRACHI: The Israeli policy is never to advance Palestinians' house units in East Jerusalem. That was the policy since '67. It's not something new.

AL-SHALCHI: And, of course, he's referring to the year 1967 when Israel occupied the West Bank and East Jerusalem after the Six-Day War.

INSKEEP: And Israel has been saying ever since, East Jerusalem is part of a unified Jerusalem and the whole city is part of Israel. Is that part of the debate here?

AL-SHALCHI: Absolutely. I mean, Israeli rights group like B'Tselem argue that these demolitions are part of that fight, encouraging Palestinians to leave the city. And so you change the demographics of Jerusalem to make the Jewish population grow larger compared to the Palestinian one. In fact, according to the Silwan neighborhood committee head, less than a mile away from the building that got demolished yesterday, there are plans to build a Jewish settlement. And it's more or less, you know, being sanctioned by the state. Far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has encouraged Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem. His religious settler community believes that all of Israel is God-given to the Jewish people, including the West Bank, where we're also seeing a similar displacement of Palestinians happening.

INSKEEP: OK, West Bank, that's an area a little bit farther out from Jerusalem. Other cities, rural areas, what's happening there?

AL-SHALCHI: Well, the United Nations says that the rate at which Israeli settlements have expanded this year in the West Bank has been at the - you know, it's the highest in record. Since 2017, over 47,000 housing units have been approved. Just this week, the Israeli cabinet approved 19 new Jewish settlements in the territory. In the past summer, the government approved a settlement project called E1, which would effectively cut the West Bank into two. The West Bank settlement expansion campaign has been spearheaded by a far-right nationalist finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, who's also in charge of settlement policy. He's a settler himself. And at the end of the day, Palestinians say that all of these moves threaten the possibility of a future Palestinian state.

INSKEEP: NPR's Hadeel Al-Shalchi in Tel Aviv. Thanks for keeping us informed here at the end of the year.

AL-SHALCHI: Of course. You're welcome.

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