UN experts warned on Friday that Israel was accelerating measures that alter Jerusalem’s demographic composition, religious character and legal status under the cover of the war in Gaza, undermining the city’s historic pluralism and shared heritage.
“What is being done to this world symbol of spiritual coexistence and shared heritage is irreversible,” the experts said in a statement.
They said extrajudicial killings, large-scale demolitions and forced displacement had escalated in East Jerusalem, while checkpoints and closures were severing the city from its Palestinian hinterland.
East Jerusalem is supposed to form the capital of a Palestinian state under the Oslo Accords, which remain the preferred route to ending the Palestinian-Israeli conflict for most of the international community.
According to the experts, the restrictions isolate Palestinian communities from their social, cultural, economic and religious life, undermining their rights to self-determination and development.
“These are not security measures,” they said. “They are components of a systematic project of demographic engineering and domination to entrench exclusive Jewish control.”
The UN said that between 2021 and 2025, 144 Palestinians were reportedly killed in Jerusalem Governorate and at least 11,555 were arrested amid allegations of arbitrary detention and ill-treatment.
Authorities also issued 2,386 deportation decisions and carried out more than 1,732 demolitions and land-levelling operations, often forcing residents to demolish their own homes under threat of fines or imprisonment, they said.
The experts said Israeli legislation bars Palestinians from reclaiming properties lost in the 1947–49 war while allowing Jewish Israelis to do so, underpinning continuing evictions in Sheikh Jarrah and Silwan.
Frequent militarised incursions and expanding settler presence have resulted in harassment, arrests and sweeping restrictions on Palestinian access to holy sites, they said.
A total of 73,871 settler incursions into the Al Aqsa Mosque compound were reported in 2025 alone.
Christian communities have also faced assaults and restrictions, particularly during religious observances, the experts said.
