My little piece of heaven  My house in Batn Al-Hawa, though modest and old, holds a dear place in my heart. It is the house I was born and grew up in. My grandmother bought this house in 1966 after she moved with her sons, my father and uncles, from Al-Sharaf neighbourhood in the Old […]

For decades Israel has been confiscating Palestinian land and demolishing Palestinian homes often to make way for the construction and expansion of illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.

Since October 2023 there has been a sharp rise in the forced displacement of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and in the occupied Gaza Strip, where Israel has forcibly displaced most of the population and recently threatened to permanently seize territory and subject the population to forcible transfer or deportation.

In January 2025, an Israeli court ordered the eviction of 27 families from their homes in Batn Al-Hawa, in the village of Silwan, in occupied East Jerusalem, after a decade-long case filed by the Israeli settler organization Ateret Cohanim who claim the land is rightfully owned by a Jewish trust.

15 May is Nakba Day, which commemorates when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were expelled or forced to flee their homes in what became Israel in 1948. They continue to be denied the right to return to this day.

This Nakba Day Zuheir Rajabi, whose family is among those who have been ordered to evacuate Batn Al-Hawa within six months, describes his experience as a Palestinian facing displacement in Jerusalem.