East Jerusalem - On 15 June 2026, officials from the Jerusalem Municipality, accompanied by Israeli police, raided property belonging to the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem in the neighbourhood of Silwan.
The Israeli authorities forcibly removed the church land’s caretaker, tore down equipment, uprooted trees, and installed a fence.
“The incident constitutes an unlawful and illegitimate seizure of established Church property in the heart of Jerusalem,” the Jerusalem Patriarchate said in a statement , emphasising it “sets a dangerous precedent for Church rights in Jerusalem.”
Following the confiscation, the Patriarchate filed a lawsuit against the Jerusalem Municipality and demanded an injunction to freeze the municipality’s work at the site as well as compensation for damages to Church property.
The court didn’t issue an injunction, instead advising both parties to continue holding discussions to reach an agreement outside of court. If an agreement isn’t reached, then the case is expected to return to court. The Patriarchate was not available for comment on the situation.
“We were surprised by the municipality’s conduct. It did not notify us in advance or attempt to engage with us. We are interested in reaching an understanding with the municipality in a way that does not harm us or the municipality’s plans,” Secretary General of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate, Bishop Aristarchos, testified in the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court on 18 June.
He added that the Church cooperated with the Jerusalem Municipality in the 1970s to carry out archaeological excavations at the site.
During the hearing, the municipality said it was acting under the “Maintaining Order and Cleanliness” municipal bylaw, which permits the mayor to order the removal of obstructions from the street and carry out landscaping work.
Municipal representatives stated this order was issued for the plot of land in January 2025, and also argued that the land wasn’t cultivated so therefore became state land, according to Israeli law. In order to confiscate land, Israel recycled an 1858 Ottoman land law declaring an area public property if it hasn’t been cultivated for several consecutive years.
When contacted for comment, the municipality spokesperson denied that City Hall confiscated the land and referred the matter to the Israel Nature and Parks Authority (INPA). INPA did not respond to requests for comment. Under international law, Israel is illegally occupying East Jerusalem, meaning that any Israeli attempts to seize property and assert sovereignty over the land are illegitimate.
“These practices are part of a systematic policy targeting the religious and historical presence in occupied Jerusalem, including both Islamic and Christian endowments,” the Jerusalem Governorate, the Palestinian Authority governing body, said in a statement to The New Arab .
“This constitutes a blatant violation of international law and relevant United Nations resolutions, which affirm the illegality of any measures or changes imposed by the occupying power in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem.”
According to the Patriarchate, the plot of land is registered in its name, and it presented a land deed in court from when the Ottoman Empire was in control of Palestine, stating the Church purchased the property over 100 years ago.
Hagit Ofran, co-director of Peace Now’s Settlement Watch Project, attended the 18 June hearing, and alluded to what might be Israel’s plans for the area.
“The municipality actually denies the Church's ownership,” Ofran told TNA . “The fact that the municipality is actually taking over it and not just cleaning it, but actually working on it - they didn't really specify what they're up to, but they say that they need more time and they said they need to clean, but then you see that they brought in bulldozers…so it seems that they want to upgrade the land so that it is where Israelis go on hikes.” Settler-state interests intertwined Silwan, located south of Al-Aqsa Mosque, is part of an area known as Jerusalem’s Old City Basin, and one of the main targets of Israeli settlement expansion in Jerusalem .
Just across from the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate’s confiscated land are two areas of Silwan at risk of complete erasure because of settler activity. In Batn al-Hawa, approximately 160 Palestinians have been forcibly expelled over the last year and a half after Ateret Cohanim, an Israeli settler group, initiated eviction proceedings against the residents under Israel’s 1970 Legal and Administrative Matters Law.
This discriminatory piece of legislation allows Jews to reclaim property belonging to them before 1948, while not affording the same restitution to Palestinians who lost property.
And in another part of Silwan, al-Bustan, the Jerusalem Municipality has demolished 58 homes since 2024 to build a biblical-themed tourist park atop the rubble. Here, again, the municipality exploited so-called gardening bylaws to confiscate and demolish Palestinian property.
“In recent years, Israeli authorities, in collaboration with the Elad settler organisation, the same group running the ‘City of David’ national park in Silwan, have advanced a network of touristic and recreational projects aimed at reshaping the Basin’s character and consolidating Israeli control, particularly in the area of the Hinnom Valley/Wadi Rababa,” Ir Amim, an Israeli rights group monitoring Jerusalem geopolitical developments, wrote on X .
“This area is of strategic geographic importance as it lies along the seamline between East and West Jerusalem and constitutes the main southern entry point to Silwan and the Old City.”
In addition to the City of David park, Elad and Israeli state joint projects in Silwan include Israel’s longest-running pedestrian bridge hovering over Wadi Rababa (referred to as Hinnom Valley by Israel) and connecting Mount Zion to Elad’s cafe built on confiscated Palestinian land.
According to Israel’s Minister of Jerusalem Affairs and Heritage, Ze’ev Elkin, the aim is to turn Wadi Rababa into a tourist attraction and thereby, “strengthen the sense of security and sovereignty in the area…[and] to ease access to the Old City”.
What is happening to the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate’s land follows the same trajectory.
“The takeover of Church land in Silwan is part of a broader effort, led by settler organisations, to gain control over the entire Wadi Rababa and Silwan area and transform it from a Palestinian space into an Israeli one,” Peace Now wrote in a press release .
“The Jerusalem Municipality and the Israel Nature and Parks Authority have become instruments of the settler ideological agenda.”
Israel's confiscation of Church property isn’t just about settlement expansion and changing the demography of East Jerusalem. It’s also part of a trend of escalating violence against Christians in the religion’s birthplace.
“This seizure belongs to a documented pattern of Israeli persecution of Christians in Jerusalem,” Dimitri Diliani, president of the National Christian Coalition in the Holy Land, told TNA .
The Jerusalem-based Rossing Center for Education and Dialogue documented 155 attacks against Christians and Christian property in 2025 - up from 111 recorded the previous year - while the Religious Freedom Data Center , an Israeli organisation tracking anti-Christian attacks, documented 44 incidents of harassment against Christians within the first three months of 2026.
Since Israel’s founding in 1948, the Christian population has dwindled to a mere 1.2 per cent from 12.5 per cent, and that number risks plummeting further as iconic Christian cities like Bethlehem and Taybeh are at the brink of erasure due to ongoing Israeli state and settler pressure.
“The Heads of Churches warned in January that political actors in the state of Israel and abroad are empowering Zionist agendas that harm the unity of the Christian flock and threaten the indigenous Palestinian Christian presence in the Holy Land,” Diliani said.
“The Church is part of our Palestinian body. Protecting Church land protects our people, our holy places, our right to worship freely and our future in the land.” Jessica Buxbaum is a Jerusalem-based journalist covering Palestine and Israel. Her work has been featured in Middle East Eye, The National, and Gulf News. Follow her on Twitter: @jess_buxbaum Edited by Charlie Hoyle