On June 25, Mutawakil al-Mohamad and his family woke up to the sound of Israeli soldiers pounding on their door with their rifles.It would be the last time they woke up in their family home in occupied East Jerusalem.The Israeli forces arrived at 7am in military convoys with two heavy bulldozers, and al-Mohamad was terrified the soldiers would raid his house and arrest him or his loved ones.Instead, the soldiers told the family their home was in a designated “military zone” and ordered them to vacate immediately so they could bulldoze it to the ground.“When I opened the door, I told the soldiers: ‘My young children are scared.’ I asked them to give me 10 minutes, then we will all be out of the house,” al-Mohamed said. The soldiers obliged, he recalled from Ramallah, the administrative capital of the occupied West Bank, where he now lives.Demolitions and displacementIsrael is demolishing more Palestinian homes across the occupied West Bank, including occupied East Jerusalem, at a higher rate in 2025 than any previous year since the occupation began in 1967.Israeli authorities have already destroyed 783 structures – a figure that does not include the large-scale destruction in refugee camps – leading to the forced displacement of 1,119 people, according to the United Nations.In the Palestinian refugee camps, Israel has destroyed about 600 structures in the Jenin camp and a combined 30 …
