‘Game of demographics’: How Israel aims to wipe out Palestinians from occupied East Jerusalem

For months, as death and destruction rained down on Gaza, analysts have been calling the world's attention to Israel's simultaneous war on the other Palestinian territories, the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.

The plight of Palestinians in the West Bank has garnered some global attention as Israel launched its largest military operation there in more than two decades, inflicting wanton destruction of properties and infrastructure in the northern cities of Jenin, Tulkarem and Tubas.

Its forces have killed and wounded scores of Palestinians over the past 10 days, adding to the more than 6,000 casualties in the occupied territory since the Gaza war began on Oct. 7.

In occupied East Jerusalem, however, experts say Israel has taken a different approach, using the Gaza war to accelerate the "silent displacement" of Palestinians to reshape its demographic landscape.

The strategy there has four main elements: demolitions, evictions, land confiscation, and expansion of illegal settlements.

It is designed specifically to isolate East Jerusalem from the West Bank, imposing further restrictions on Palestinian residents, and advancing Israel's "settler colonial" ambitions.

"All measures of forced displacement have seen a drastic escalation since Oct. 7, and Israel is well known to exploit these kinds of situations in order to advance its settler colonial endeavors," said Tamara Tamimi, a Palestinian policy fellow at think tank Al-Shabaka living in East Jerusalem.

"Israel has exploited its genocidal onslaught on Gaza in order to advance settler colonialism in other key strategic areas, particularly Jerusalem and Area C in the remainder of the West Bank."

A crucial actor in this "large escalation" is the illegal settler movement and the organizations associated with it in key strategic areas in Jerusalem, she said.

Emad Moussa, a British-Palestinian writer and researcher, said Israel's actions in East Jerusalem are part of its "game of demographics," explaining that Israel is achieving two main objectives with its illegal settlement expansion.

"First, isolate the city from its Palestinian surroundings in the West Bank. Second, by doing that, it puts more restrictions on Palestinian Jerusalemites and, slowly but surely, reduces their numbers," he said.

- 'Silent measures'

East Jerusalem, home to more than 350,000 Palestinians and around 230,000 Israeli settlers, is revered by millions due to its historic holy sites.

It has long been at the heart of the Palestinian struggle, as Palestinians see it as the capital of any future Palestinian state, while Israel claims Jerusalem in its entirety as its capital.

In 1967 during its war with Egypt, Jordan and Syria, Israel invaded and occupied Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Israel also unilaterally "annexed" East Jerusalem, merging it and a surrounding area of 64 square kilometers (around 25 square miles) into the boundaries of the Israeli municipality of Jerusalem.

In a landmark opinion this July, the International Court of Justice declared that Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories is illegal and should end "as rapidly as possible."

Osama Risheq, a researcher and legal supervisor at Al-Quds University, described Israel's strategy as a "triangle … (of) how to acquire a wider amount of land with a fewer amount of people, but without using force."

Annexing East Jerusalem "was the first step," he said.

"Instead of using force against the Palestinians in Jerusalem, Israel has actually designed and implemented a network of laws and policies that support its settler colonial project," added Risheq, who also lives in East Jerusalem.

Tamimi concurred with his assessment, stressing that "all of these silent measures are part of Israel's strategy to continue to maximize the acquisition of land with the least percentage of Palestinians on it."

"Another key aspect that we need to really focus on, and this is very dangerous, is the imposition of a coercive environment to drive out Palestinians 'voluntarily' that they are living on their own land," she said.

- Confiscation and demolition

Israel has used several laws to confiscate Palestinian properties in East Jerusalem, particularly the Absentees' Property Law of 1950, said Risheq.

The law applies only to Palestinians and gives Israel the power to confiscate properties and assets that Palestinians were forced to abandon when they were expelled in 1948.

It was passed in March 1950 by the government of David Ben-Gurion, Israel's first prime minister, and is used to this day to target Palestinians.

Three months after issuing the law, a special unit was established "to take control of confiscated properties and then leak them to the settler organizations," Risheq said.

At least 70% of all Palestinian properties confiscated by Israel have been through this law, he added.

Risheq said the recent number of demolitions in the West Bank and East Jerusalem has been the highest compared to the past 10 years.

Between Oct. 7, 2023 and Aug. 26 this year, Israeli authorities "demolished, confiscated, or forced the demolition of 1,446 Palestinian structures across the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, displacing more than 3,300 Palestinians, including about 1,430 children," according to the UN rights office.

This figure "is more than double the number when compared with the same period before Oct. 7," it said.

These demolitions are ordered on the basis of violations of Israel's zoning and planning laws, Risheq explained.

"They (these laws) are clever. They don't say to Palestinians that you cannot build. They say you can build, but in order to build, you have to submit 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, which at the end makes it impossible for Jerusalemites to actually apply for construction permits," he said.

Many Palestinians in East Jerusalem are forced to build homes without permits because Israel has set impossible conditions for approval and refuses to grant them, he said.

These include providing land entitlement documents, which most Jerusalemites do not have because "in general … only 10% of all Palestinians have written land entitlements," he said.

Then there is the cost factor as just applying for a permit for "a 200-square-meter flat would cost around $40,000," he added.

"Imagine a Jerusalemite paying this amount of money, bearing in mind that 95% of construction permits that Palestinians have applied for since 1967 have been rejected," he said.

"In addition to that, Israel has actually expropriated more than 30% of the 70 kilometers (over 43 miles) which constitute East Jerusalem as public interest territories, so Palestinians are not allowed to build in these areas. Another 30% was confiscated for settlements."

In total, he said, there is an area of around 14 kilometers (around 9 miles) where Palestinians are allowed to build.

This area, even back in 1967, was more than 80% already filled with buildings, he added.

- Expansion of settlements

All Israeli settlements are considered illegal under international law, but that has done little to deter Israel from making efforts to expand them by taking over more Palestinian land.

"Israel building settlements is nothing new. The speed of which these settlements are built and the number of their units are often connected to the political situation in the region, and has little to do with who is in power in Israel-Labour or Likud-or what they call the 'natural growth' of the Jewish population," said Moussa, the writer.

British daily The Guardian reported in April that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government "has accelerated the construction of settlements across occupied East Jerusalem, with more than 20 projects totaling thousands of housing units having been approved or advanced since the start of the war on Gaza."

According to Israeli rights group Ir Amim, these are the first settlement plans to be fully approved by the Israeli government since 2012.

It said the new settlement plan is expected to include 1,792 housing units, which will be built on lands belonging to East Jerusalem's Sur Baher neighborhood.

"Now, in East Jerusalem, wherever you turn your head, you will find a settlement," said Risheq.

He mentioned the E1 Settlement in the occupied West Bank, saying that it will displace more than 5,000 people from their land.

The main purpose of all of this is to "create facts on the ground and take control over a wide area of Jerusalem and Jordan Valley," he said.