GENEVA - Irreparable harm is being inflicted on Jerusalem, as violence engulfs the region, and genocide continues in Gaza and spills into the West Bank, UN experts* warned today.
"Under the cover of an existential war against the Palestinians, Israel is accelerating measures that alter Jerusalem's demographic composition, religious character and legal status, destroying the remnants of the pluralistic fabric that Jerusalem has represented for centuries, for Muslims, Christians and Jews, " the experts said.
"What is being done to this world symbol of spiritual coexistence and shared heritage is irreversible."
In occupied East Jerusalem, extrajudicial killings, large-scale demolitions and forced displacement have escalated. Checkpoints and closures are severing the city from its Palestinian hinterland, isolating communities from their social, cultural, economic and religious life and undermining their rights to self-determination and development. Punitive policing and systematic interference with freedom of worship are designed to coerce Palestinians to leave.
"These are not security measures," the experts said. "They are components of a systematic project of demographic engineering and domination to entrench exclusive Jewish control."
The scale is stark. Between 2021 and 2025, 144 Palestinians were reportedly killed in Jerusalem's Governorate. At least 11,555 were arrested, amid allegations of arbitrary detention and ill-treatment. Authorities issued 2,386 deportation decisions and carried out more than 1,732 demolitions and land-levelling operations, often coercing residents to demolish their own homes under threat of heavy fines or imprisonment. Thirty-three Bedouin communities, home to more than 7,000 Palestinians, are being pushed toward displacement through repeated demolitions and land seizures. The deprivation of access to natural resources have stripped away their subsistence, forcing many to leave.
Israel's discriminatory legislation drives this process: barring Palestinians from reclaiming properties lost in 1947-49 while enabling Israeli Jews to do so, and advancing unlawful expropriation measures underpinning ongoing evictions in Sheikh Jarrah and Silwan.
The experts said international humanitarian law and human rights law unequivocally prohibit confiscation of private property and the forcible transfer of a protected population. "Such acts constitute grave breaches of the Fourth Geneva Convention and may amount to war crimes. Yet decades of invoking this legal framework have failed to halt the violations - impunity granted to Israel has become an enabler."
Children's access to education has deteriorated following legislation obstructing the work of UNRWA and violation of its premises, including in East Jerusalem. Frequent militarised incursions, coupled with expanding settler presence, have resulted in harassment, arrests and sweeping restrictions on Palestinian access to holy sites. 73,871 settler incursions into the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound were reported in 2025 alone. Christian communities have faced assaults and restrictions, particularly during religious observances.
"Especially during Ramadan, access limitations have gravely curtailed Palestinians' ability to participate in religious life."
"These acts must be understood in their totality: the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, by whatever means, whatever the cost and whatever crimes it takes. This environment is coercing Palestinians to leave their homes and life in a city where their roots run deep," the experts warned.
The experts urged immediate international action, especially in the wake of the International Court of Justice Advisory Opinion which declared Israel's occupation of Palestinian territory unlawful, and called on all States to refrain from recognising or aiding the occupation and to act collectively to end it.
"What is unfolding mirrors colonial enterprises of past centuries, carried out in real time, undermining a fully developed international legal system," they said.
"What is erased now - the richness of Jerusalem's communities, heritage and rights - will not be restored. Inaction is not neutrality; it is complicity," the experts warned.
