East Jerusalem residents anguished as homes demolished to make way for Bible Park

If demolition work in the Al-Bustan neighborhood goes ahead, it will be the third time she has lost her home, this time to make way for an archaeological and tourist park in the Silwan area outside the old city.

“I don’t know what to do… I want to stay at home,” she told AFP from her bed in the house she shares with 12 family members, which the city considers illegal.

“When it was built in 1970, there was no permit. We tried all legal avenues,” said her son, Mohammed Qwaider, an anxious look on his face.

Israeli NGO Ir Amim said demolitions in Bustan had increased “dramatically” since Hamas launched an attack in October 2023, with the “vast majority” of its 115 houses under threat.

The NGO, which works for a “fair” share of the city, said 17 homes had been razed so far this year, compared with 13 in 2025 and 24 the year before.

It accused the council of an “abrupt decision” to stop negotiations with residents on “appropriate housing solutions for the area”.

Thousands of homes in annexed east Jerusalem were built without permits, which Palestinian residents say are nearly impossible to obtain.

The city did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

-“King’s Garden”-

Standing on the edge of a hill of rubble where five houses once stood, Fakhri Abu Diab, chairman of the residents’ committee, told visiting diplomats that the city “hopes to demolish all 115 houses by October.”

“We ask you to stop this from happening and keep us at home. This is a political decision and world leaders have done nothing. You must do something,” he pleaded.

“What they did was a war crime, they demolished the houses and displaced us. We had nowhere to go,” said the 64-year-old, whose own house was demolished in 2024.

At issue is the expansion of an archaeological and tourism project at the City of David in Silwan, believed to be the original site of ancient Jerusalem.

Razing Al-Bustan is intended to make way for the adjacent “King’s Garden” park for visitors to the City of David, which is run by the Elad Settler Group.

Peace Now’s Yonatan Mizrahi said Elad used different strategies to take over specific areas of Silwan.

“There are almost no archaeological finds in Al-Bustan, so they say there is a Biblical account of the King’s Garden and that it ‘could’ be where Al-Bustan is today,” he said.

Ahmed Tibi, Israel’s most prominent Arab lawmaker, said the main goal was the “Judaization of Silwan” at the expense of Palestinian residents.

“After October 7, the situation changed dramatically. They felt they could get away with anything,” he told AFP.

Amim warned that more than 2,000 Palestinians living near holy sites in Jerusalem risk being displaced in “one of the largest waves of expulsions in East Jerusalem since 1967” if the evictions are not halted.

– Palestinians are not allowed to build –

Laura Wharton, a city councilor representing the liberal Jerusalem Alliance, said the most punitive factor was the lack of building permits.

“What’s worse than demolition is that they don’t allow Palestinian residents to build,” she said.

“The average resident of Sylvan has no recognition for their home, no building permit, no place to park, and the main service they receive is demolition services.”

Not so for the Jewish residents.

“In 20 or 30 years of demolition here, not a single settler house has been demolished,” Wharton said.

This reality is not lost on the locals of Bustan.

“The Israeli was allowed to build; look, he was 50 meters away and no one stopped him. But for us, it was forbidden,” said Omar Abu Rajab, 60, bitterly as he began to level his house.

When a demolition order was issued for his one-bedroom home, he decided to do it himself to avoid the city’s high demolition costs.

So far he has been fined 64,000 shekels, and it would cost the city tens of thousands of shekels if he razed his house.

At home, his two grandchildren skipped school to help, pounding drywall with mallets.

“Although we own the land, we have lost everything,” he told AFP. He said he and his wife would move into his brother’s house, which faced the same fate.

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