Khaberni - The Israeli occupation municipality in the city of Jerusalem notified the residents of Al-Bustan neighborhood in the town of Silwan, south of Al-Aqsa Mosque, on Sunday, of its intention to seize 1100 square meters of land in the neighborhood.
The Jerusalem Governorate stated in a press release that the occupation authorities justified the seizure with plans for a "landscape and parking lot project," citing claims by the Mayor of the occupation, Moshe Leon, who alleged that these areas are classified as "vacant lands" under the Local Authorities Law of 1987.
The Governorate warned that this move represents "an overt legal manipulation aimed clearly at preventing the citizens from utilizing their lands or applying for their licensing, especially following a series of systematic demolitions that recently affected the area."
It added that the occupation seeks to create a "legal" cover for a silent process of confiscation and ethnic cleansing, and considered this escalation as a continuation of measures taken by the occupation authorities at the beginning of the month, when they notified the seizure of about 5.7 dunams (a dunam equals one thousand square meters) of land in the neighborhood under the same pretext.
It claimed that they are "vacant lands," while in reality, they include rubble from inhabited houses that the occupation forcibly demolished and prevented their owners from rebuilding or utilizing them, in an attempt to falsify the reality of the land and impose control over it.
The Governorate emphasized the invalidity of the municipality's claims that this seizure will be a "temporary use" for a period of 5 years, confirming that "field realities and past experiences of Jerusalemites indicate the occupation’s intention to establish a permanent settler reality that prevents any Palestinian urban expansion, especially after the demolition of 35 establishments in the neighborhood since October 7, 2023, the latest of which was the home of the citizen Shafe' Ahmed Abu Shafe' at the end of last year.
The Governorate pointed out that these steps represent the most dangerous phase in targeting Al-Bustan neighborhood, which is inhabited by about 1500 citizens in 120 houses, facing a systematic and multifaceted attack; as the occupation classifies 80% of the neighborhood homes as structures immediately threatened with demolition.
It stressed that the systematic daily pressure policy in the town of Silwan, which includes road closures, arrests, and the demolition of the sit-in tent, aims to forcibly displace the residents to empty the area adjacent to Al-Aqsa Mosque, calling on the international community to intervene immediately to stop this criminal legal and humanitarian act aimed at completing the "encircling Judaization ring" around Old Jerusalem.
According to official Palestinian data for the year 2025, the competent Israeli authorities discussed 107 settlement structural plans in the occupied Jerusalem Governorate, 41 plans outside the occupation municipality boundaries, and 66 within the boundaries set by the municipality for the city of Jerusalem.
It mentioned that these plans are part of 265 structural plans reviewed by these authorities in the entire West Bank, aiming to build a total of 34,979 settlement units on an area of 33,448 dunams, according to the report.
