By Anjali Sharma
UNITED NATIONS – UN human rights office, OHCHR on Thursday has reported that Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, are increasingly being subjected to forced displacement and land seizures.
According to OHCHR’s office in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Israeli authorities have boosted up measures to transfer large numbers of people from long-standing Palestinian towns and communities.
High Planning Council in the Israeli Civil Administration issued a directive to reject all building and planning permits submitted by Palestinians in Masafer Yatta, South Hebron Hills, in the area referred by the Israeli authorities as Firing Zone 918, OHCHR noted.
UN rights office said that the decision was based on the grounds that the Israeli army needs the area for “military training”.
Israel has ramped up home demolitions, as well as the arbitrary arrest and ill-treatment of Palestinians and human rights defenders.
It is happening alongside intensifying movement restrictions in and around Masafer Yatta, to force Palestinians out, the office noted.
Israeli settlers from nearby outposts have carried out daily attacks and harassment of Palestinians, including older people, women and children, to force them to leave.
OHCHR said that “The recent directive by the Israeli Civil Administration effectively paves the way for the Israeli army to demolish existing structures in the area and expel the 1,200 Palestinians, who have been living there for decades,”.
“This would amount to forcible transfer, which is a war crime. It could also amount to a crime against humanity if committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack.”
OCHA reported that some 6,463 Palestinians have been forcibly displaced following the demolition of their homes by Israel between 7 October 2023 and 31 May 2025.
The figure does not include the 40,000 Palestinians displaced from three refugee camps in Jenin and Tulkarem as a result of intensive Israeli operations in the northern West Bank since January.
Over 2,200 Palestinians were forcibly displaced by settler attacks and access restrictions.
OHCHR added that countless other Palestinian communities face the same fate of forced displacement.
It said that on 10 June, the Jerusalem municipality reportedly issued demolition notices for the entire village of An Nu’man, home to 150 people.
The village is located near Bethlehem, was cut off from the rest of the West Bank by the construction of the separation wall and incorporated into Israel’s unilaterally declared boundaries of the Jerusalem municipality.
Most Palestinians were not provided with Jerusalem identification cards, effectively rendering them unable to access services in either East Jerusalem or the rest of the West Bank.
“These demolition notices appear to be another step by Israel to compound the coercive environment and forcibly transfer Palestinians from the village and consolidate the annexation of this land,” the office said.
Palestinians in occupied East Jerusalem also face the ongoing threat of forced eviction from their homes and lands.
OHCHR said that on 16 and 22 June, the Israeli Supreme Court endorsed the eviction of five Palestinian families, 37 people, from their homes in the Batn El Hawa neighborhood of Silwan based on discriminatory laws that permit Jewish individuals to reclaim property lost in the 1948 war, while denying Palestinians the same rights.
Israel Land Authority issued eviction notices on 11 June for residencies in Umm Tuba.
Some 150 Palestinians affected were informed that the land was registered to the Jewish National Fund under the “settlement of land title”.
OHCHR said “These evictions form part of a concerted campaign by the Israeli State and settler organizations, which target Palestinian neighbourhoods to seize Palestinian homes and expand Jewish settlements,”.
The office stressed that these acts violate international law, which prohibits the confiscation of private property in occupied territory, as highlighted by the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice last July.
