Almost 60 years ago, Israeli forces captured East Jerusalem in one of the most dramatic and consequential battles of the latter half of the 20th century. After days of fighting, Israel gained control of historical sites sacred to the billions of followers of the Abrahamic faiths.
On June 7, 1967, defence minister Moshe Dayan stood at the Western Wall, shortly after Israel had taken it from Jordanian troops, and declared that the Israeli military had “liberated Jerusalem this morning”.
“We reunited divided Jerusalem, the bisected capital of Israel. We have returned to our holiest places, we have returned in order not to part from them ever again,” he said. In 1980, Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, passed a law that stated “Jerusalem, complete and united, is the capital of Israel”.
The current Israeli government has made it a priority to persist with this mission, even if it means breaking taboos its predecessors were unwilling to, whether it is advancing controversial settlement projects or pushing to change the status quo at Al Aqsa Mosque, the third-holiest site in Islam, to allow Jews to worship there.
The past year has been one of the most significant periods since 1967 for Israel’s consolidation of control over all of Jerusalem. Instead of military battles, the campaign is being conducted through demolition and the displacement of East Jerusalem’s Palestinian-majority population.
The latest target is Al Bustan area in the Silwan neighbourhood, where the equivalent of 115 homes, with about 1,500 occupants, are under threat of being razed. Jerusalem’s municipality claims that these homes were built without proper permits but Palestinians have long said that it is near impossible for them, but not Israeli Jews, to receive permission to build.
In 2025, only 7 per cent of new housing approved in Jerusalem was for Palestinians, who make up about 40 per cent of the city’s population, according to Israeli human rights group Bimkom.
The municipality says it wants to turn Al Bustan into a Bible theme park. Much of the dispossession to befall the city's Palestinians in recent years has been to make way for tourism sites, which campaigners say is a cover for the Israeli state to take Palestinian land.
A significant demolition in East Jerusalem occurred in January, when Israel razed the headquarters of UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, on Ammunition Hill. Philippe Lazzarini, the agency’s chief, called the move “a new level of open and deliberate defiance of international law”. It was the latest in a string of actions taken by Israel against UNRWA since the Gaza War began.
As important as it is to observe what is being destroyed in the environs of East Jerusalem, it is equally important to note what is being built. A report by Israeli NGO Ir Amim in March says the establishment of new settlements, new roads, travel restrictions on Palestinians, displacement through settler and military violence, and increased home demolitions are all part of an Israeli state-backed push to achieve a “Greater Jerusalem”.
One example is the new Israeli settlement of Yatziv near the Palestinian town of Beit Sahour, south of Jerusalem – for now, little more than a few shipping containers on a dusty hilltop, blocked off from the road by a reinforced barrier. About 15 years ago, it was the site for a proposed US-funded hospital for Palestinian children, under a plan approved by the Israeli government of Ehud Olmert.
“Here, you put a settlement smack on top of a Palestinian town to make sure that it cannot expand,” said Aviv Tatarsky of Ir Amim, speaking to The National at the base of the hill as streams of Palestinian cars barrelled down the road past flapping Israeli flags.
“Today, these settlers want to feel like they are part of the state of Israel, but their daily reality is a huge contrast to that … this is what Israel wants to change.”
Ir Amim, whose declared mission is to “render Jerusalem a more equitable and sustainable city for the Israelis and Palestinians”, sees 2026 as a key year in Israel’s march towards fundamentally changing the nature of East Jerusalem and the surrounding areas in the occupied West Bank.
“While annexation of the West Bank and blocking the prospect of a Palestinian state are openly discussed, another central Israeli objective is being pursued: the expulsion of Palestinian communities from the areas that Israel has marked for annexation,” it noted in a recent report.
“Israel is not merely content with cementing control over the space surrounding Jerusalem but also seeks to drive Palestinians from it.”
Expanding territory
Few of these actions are more alarming than the plan to build a settlement in the area near Jerusalem known as E1, which for years was held back by successive Israeli governments in large part due to international pressure. However, in keeping with 2026 emerging as one of the most devastating years for Palestinians in Jerusalem, tenders will be issued on June 1 for the construction of 3,400 settlement homes in the area, which would bisect the occupied West Bank and cut it off from East Jerusalem.
The plan is seen as a threat to the two-state solution, long seen as the preferred means to end the Israel-Palestine conflict by the vast majority of the international community. East Jerusalem is supposed to form the capital of a Palestinian state under the Oslo Accords.
While Israel’s destruction of Palestinian neighbourhoods and the building of illegal settlements are clear to see, many of its most significant actions this year are technical and therefore go largely unnoticed.
In March, Israel officially allocated a contested plot of land in the south of Jerusalem as the site for a new US embassy. Its construction will be the next stage of President Donald Trump's controversial decision during his first term to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, in an unofficial recognition by his country of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
In February, anti-settlement group Peace Now accused Israel of moving to expand the borders of Jerusalem for the first time since 1967, through its latest plans for new settlement construction, which it said would amount to “annexation [of the occupied West Bank] through the back door”. The move would be a significant escalation in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
A day earlier, the government had approved a plan to allow land registration in the West Bank, giving Israeli authorities the power to irreversibly determine ownership of land there. The news has alarmed many because similar moves passed in Jerusalem in 2018 have led to a massive discrepancy at the expense of Palestinians.
About 230 hectares in East Jerusalem were fully settled and registered by the end of 2025, according to Bimkom. Of that, 82 per cent was registered in the name of the Israeli state and state-affiliated bodies such as the Jewish National Fund and the Jerusalem Municipality. Nine per cent was registered to unknown owners, which Bimkom said “will most likely lead to Jewish private or company ownership in the future”. Four per cent was registered to Jewish owners and another four per cent to churches. Only one per cent is now in the name of Palestinian owners.
