Policy Paper: “Silwan - A Process of A Replacement”

This factsheet analyzes and highlights the various push factors faced in the Jerusalem community of Silwan, and advocate target groups towards raising needed recommendations. In Silwan, hundreds of residents of Batn al-Hawa are facing forcible transfer threats, in the form of lawsuits filed by the settler organization Ateret Cohanim. The pretext is settler claims of ownership over the land from before 1948. East Jerusalem is an occupied territory and hence Israel’s imposition of its domestic laws over it is in itself illegal under international law. Replacing Palestinians with settlers is prohibited under Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention and amounts to a war crime based on the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. Batan al-Hawa is not the only targeted neighborhood in Silwan: Al-Bustan is also facing threats of mass home demolition under the pretext of unauthorized construction; these home demolitions are a recurring threat all over Silwan. Controlling Silwan is a strategic objective for the state-backed settler movement that seeks to create the so-called Holy Basin.