In the Batn al-Hawa neighborhood, inside the town of Silwan and about 400 meters from Al-Aqsa Mosque, more than 84 Palestinian families (around 700 people) have lived under threat of eviction since 2015, based on a 1970 Israeli law that allows Jews to claim property from before 1948 while denying Palestinians the same right. Over these years, Israeli occupation forces have already removed dozens of families from their homes, and the houses have been turned into settlement outposts expanding inside the neighborhood under the protection of the occupation.
By contrast, the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood lies north of the Old City and was established in 1956 to house Palestinian families displaced in 1948. Today, the occupation is pushing to alter its character through permanent settlement projects, most notably the approval in 2026 of an 11-story Jewish religious school for Haredim on an area of nearly 5 dunams, including housing for hundreds of settlers, at a site in the middle of the neighborhood.
What the two neighborhoods share is that in Batn al-Hawa, ownership is being redistributed through the courts, while in Sheikh Jarrah, the neighborhood is being reshaped through settlement construction. In both cases, the Palestinian presence inside established neighborhoods in the heart of Jerusalem is shrinking.
In this special interview for “Noon Post,” we host Dr. Ahmad Amara, a human rights lawyer, researcher in Ottoman land law and the history of settlement in Jerusalem, and author of the book “Settlement in Jerusalem Neighborhoods,” alongside Jerusalem-based researcher Fakhri Abu Diab, a member of the Silwan Defense Committee. Both are among the voices tracking and unpacking the mechanisms of the legal and settlement system in Jerusalem and their impact on the Palestinian presence inside the neighborhoods.
How do you explain what is happening in Silwan and Sheikh Jarrah as a different kind of settlement taking place in the heart of residential neighborhoods rather than on the city’s outskirts?
What is happening, essentially, follows the ideology adopted by hardline religious nationalist Zionism, which pursues what is called “settlement in the hearts.” That is, settlement is not on hilltops or on the edges of the city, but in its very center. First, in the center as they understand it, meaning every point or patch within what is called the “Greater Land of Israel.” And also inside, meaning in coastal cities such as Lod and Ramla, as well as within neighborhoods themselves, in the heart of Palestinian neighborhoods.
Each phase of settlement, and each ideology, has its own goals and motivations. If we speak specifically about Jerusalem, this trend escalated further after the Oslo idea, and with thinking about the possibility of dividing Jerusalem, the direction from that time onward was toward settlement in the heart of neighborhoods in East Jerusalem, with the aim of preventing any future political division of the city.
In practice, what happened and developed at this stage was reliance on an Israeli law that allows claims to property that was Jewish before 1948, a law applied only in East Jerusalem. These claims are often pursued by right-wing settler associations rather than the landowners themselves, because any owner who existed before 1948 was later compensated, whether with land, a house, or money.
But these associations look for legal loopholes and existing historical facts, and they receive major support from the Jerusalem Municipality, the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Finance, and other bodies such as the Israel Land Fund, the Custodian of Absentee Property, or the General Custodian in Jerusalem. All of these bodies support them in how to obtain these properties, and after taking control of them, Palestinian families are evicted, then larger settlements and institutions are planned so that these areas are transformed into settler neighborhoods.
You point to the role of settler associations in the “heart of Palestinian neighborhoods.” How do these associations operate in practice as a legal actor, a political actor, or both?
These associations are fundamentally political settler organizations, but at the same time they employ the legal and political structure available to them within the existing system, under the current government and the growing influence of the far right, and they benefit from everything the system offers in terms of courts, institutions, decisions, and budgets, to the point that they sometimes appear as if they were ordinary NGOs.
In the 1990s, a government decision was issued to form a committee to examine how these associations were taking control of properties inside Jerusalem, whether in the Old City or in Silwan. At the time, there were indications of collusion and cooperation among several official institutions, such as the Ministry of Housing, the Custodian of Absentee Property, the Israel Land Fund, and the Israel Lands Administration, in transferring properties—whether Palestinian or previously classified as “Jewish property before 1948”—to these associations.
Among these associations is “Ateret Cohanim,” in addition to other associations such as “Elad,” also known as “Ir David” or the “Toward the City of David” project in Silwan.
At that stage, the broader political climate was more cautious toward this type of activity, but it later changed gradually to become more supportive of it. With the rise of religious Zionism and the growing influence of the far right in government, these associations became more empowered, and the political, legal, and financial structure was used more broadly to advance their projects.
Over the past 15 to 20 years, this approach has expanded markedly in several areas inside Jerusalem, such as Batn al-Hawa, Sheikh Jarrah, the Old City, Wadi al-Rababa, Beit Hanina, Ras al-Amud, and other neighborhoods witnessing this pattern of settlement in the heart of residential areas.
To what extent can the evictions in Batn al-Hawa be considered part of a legal-political system aimed at reshaping the Palestinian presence inside Jerusalem?
To a large extent, it is clear that there is a general political atmosphere being exploited by these associations, and the infrastructure has been broadly prepared for this purpose. Legally, there is room for different legal interpretations that are sometimes used to prevent evictions, while at another level there are measures that are not tied only to legal interpretation, but go beyond it.
For example, there are government interventions through tools that are not directly legal, such as the file of archaeological sites or what is known as the “national parks” authority, where the management and maintenance of the “City of David Park” was effectively handed to a settler association such as “Elad.” There are also decisions issued by bodies such as the Custodian of Absentee Property, which helped transfer properties and make them available for the benefit of settler associations.
In addition, budgets have been allocated to these associations to renovate some houses or develop projects inside the neighborhoods. Therefore, the matter is not only about legal interpretations, but also about direct political decisions, alongside the use and exploitation of the existing legal system within this context.
How are historical or religious claims used within the legal track to justify eviction or settlement in neighborhoods such as Sheikh Jarrah and Batn al-Hawa?
These claims are exploited within a specific part of the existing legal system, as an extension of the legal structure already in place. There is an Israeli legal amendment stipulating that all properties that were under the Jordanian “Custodian of Enemy Property” before 1967 effectively Jewish properties transferred to that custodian returned after 1967 to the administration of the Israeli “General Custodian,” a body affiliated with the Ministry of Justice.
Within this framework, an amendment was made allowing any Jewish person or Jewish heir to claim property dating back to before 1948 through this body, the “General Custodian,” and thus recover it. Here, settler associations entered and exploited this track, beginning to claim that they had bought or obtained these properties from Jewish families or their heirs.
In some cases, Jewish institutions played a role in transferring ownership, as in Sheikh Jarrah, where the “Sephardic Community Committee” in Jerusalem transferred its land rights to parties linked to settler associations.
In Batn al-Hawa, some claims were based on the existence of a Jewish waqf (such as the Yemenite Jewish waqf) dating back to the late 19th century, where representatives of settler associations appointed themselves as trustees of this waqf, then approached the “General Custodian” and submitted claims of ownership or legal representation of these properties. Based on that, ownership was transferred to them on paper, after which eviction lawsuits against Palestinian families began.
These lawsuits are often built on historical or religious narratives, such as that these homes belonged to Jewish families before 1948, or that they were a synagogue or a religious endowment. They also often rely on the reality of Jerusalem in the late Ottoman period, when it was a city of multiple populations and religions, characterized by broad social and religious diversity, which the Ottoman Empire allowed.
But this historical diversity is being exploited today within a legal and political track, so that it becomes a tool for proving “historical ownership” that is used in practice for eviction. By contrast, Palestinians do not enjoy the same ability to recover their confiscated properties in places such as Batn al-Hawa, Sheikh Jarrah, Talbiya, Baq’a, the Old City, the Moroccan Quarter, and others.
In this way, this law and its administrative framework are used so that the system operates in one direction, where historical claims are turned into a legal path leading to eviction, and then to the creation of a new settlement reality on the ground.
How do you explain the intertwined relationship between law, politics, and geography in reshaping Palestinian neighborhoods inside Jerusalem? And where does the impact actually begin?
In the end, there are several laws that form part of this system, including the Absentee Property Law, the Land Expropriation Law, and the Land for Public Purposes Law dating back to 1943 during the British Mandate. There are also laws related to agriculture, in addition to interpretations of Ottoman laws regarding waqf, miri land, mahlul land, and mawat land. Alongside that, there is the Legal and Administrative Matters Law of 1970 and its applications.
Taken together, these laws form an integrated legal system aimed at confiscating Palestinian property and transferring it to the state or to Jewish entities, as part of a broader project to Judaize Jerusalem and reshape its legal and political geography, and that of Palestine more generally.
When looking at the broader context, we see that many of these laws that were applied inside Palestine after 1948 were expanded or adapted after 1967, whether through direct legislation in Jerusalem or through similar military orders in the West Bank. They are largely similar in substance, especially regarding absentee property, the confiscation of public land, or the refusal to recognize certain types of land such as miri, mahlul, and mawat.
From this perspective, what is happening in Silwan and Sheikh Jarrah cannot be separated from this broader system; rather, it is a direct extension of it, where laws intersect with political decisions and are ultimately reflected on the ground through the reshaping of neighborhoods and demographic geography.
Can what is happening in Silwan and Sheikh Jarrah be understood as a single policy of re-engineering Palestinian neighborhoods inside Jerusalem, or is it a series of separate cases?
No, of course, what is happening is part of a general policy that has been discussed, decisions have been made about it, and it has been implemented regularly over decades. The Jewish or Zionist settlement movement, throughout its history, has operated in an organized and continuous manner.
If we look historically, we find that before 1948 the focus was mainly on settlement in the coastal cities. After 1948, efforts were made to strengthen control over the borders and frontier areas, as well as to reassert control over major cities such as Haifa and Jaffa. After 1967, the pattern of settlement on hilltops emerged, later known as “hilltop settlement.”
In the most recent phase, however, the ideology based on what is called “settlement in the hearts” emerged, meaning inside Palestinian neighborhoods, as we see today. This pattern has even extended into Jewish neighborhoods as well, with the aim of reshaping society itself in a more religious direction, in a way that reinforces rejection of any withdrawal from any part of the land.
Alongside this, what are known as “Torah nuclei” emerged—institutions and associations that worked on settlement inside major Israeli cities and within neighborhoods in coastal cities such as Lod, Ramla, Jaffa, Haifa, and Acre, with the aim of limiting Arab and Palestinian expansion, especially as some Jewish families moved out of these areas.
Each wave of settlement was also often linked to a specific political context, such as agreements or withdrawals. Following the Camp David agreement with Egypt, a new wave of settlement began in the West Bank. After the Oslo Accords, another wave emerged, especially in Jerusalem neighborhoods, aimed at preventing any future division. Likewise, after the withdrawal from Gaza, the “Torah nuclei” became active inside coastal cities and in other cities such as Tel Aviv.
Accordingly, what is happening cannot be understood as separate cases, but rather as a systematic and interconnected process tied to successive historical and political contexts, aimed overall at deliberately reshaping geography and demographic presence.
How effective are the legal tools available to Palestinians in confronting or delaying eviction orders in Batn al-Hawa and Sheikh Jarrah, given the use of the 1970 “Legal and Administrative Matters” law in favor of settler associations?
It is difficult to separate this question from the existing reality, because in practice there has been a major legal effort extending over decades. A case like Sheikh Jarrah, for example, has seen continuous legal work from the early 1970s until today. Even so, the legal system is not in Palestinians’ favor, and dealing with it does not work to their advantage, but it remains the available tool and the only official legal avenue.
By contrast, we have seen that popular mobilization can support the legal track, as happened in Sheikh Jarrah, but in practice these tools remain limited. Courts interpret the laws in a way that serves the existing context, and in many cases align with the prevailing ideology. Although there was room, at the level of magistrates’ courts or even the Supreme Court, to make different decisions, that did not happen, and the general legal climate remained unfair to Palestinians.
Still, there have been limited cases of partial success or delayed evictions, often linked to intensive professional work in gathering evidence. In a number of cases, I participated as an expert witness and relied on preparing reports based on in-depth research in the Ottoman archives, the British archives, and Sharia court records, with the aim of refuting the claims presented regarding land ownership. In some cases, this evidence helped support the legal files and delay proceedings or achieve partial results.
There are also legal interpretations that can serve Palestinians, but their impact remains limited within a broader reality, especially with the rising influence of right-wing currents and their growing control over the structure of the judiciary. This began years ago in Jerusalem magistrates’ courts and later spread, making the legal challenge more complex.
In the end, the legal path still relies on tools such as collecting and presenting historical evidence from Ottoman and British archives and Sharia court records, but its effectiveness remains relative, often limited to delay or partial gains rather than changing the overall course of these cases.
If these policies continue, how will the reality of housing and ownership for Palestinians in Jerusalem change legally?
In practice, there are no precise statistics determining the number of threatened Palestinian properties, especially within the category that can be claimed to have belonged to Jewish associations or individuals before 1948. But in general, it is clear that there is a continuous expansion in eviction operations, moving from one neighborhood to another. These cases have appeared in Musrara, Sheikh Jarrah, Silwan, several neighborhoods within Silwan, Ras al-Amud, Beit Hanina, and Shuafat, in addition to areas such as Jabal al-Mukabber and Beit Safafa.
This process also intersects with the ongoing “land settlement” process in Jerusalem, which is expected to lead to the registration of wide areas either as absentee property or as state land. Ultimately, there are fears that this process will be used to strengthen control over land and harness it within a broader project to Judaize Jerusalem and reshape the city demographically and legally.
How do the evictions and settlement in Batn al-Hawa and Sheikh Jarrah constitute a violation of the rules of international law, including the Fourth Geneva Convention?
These policies constitute violations on several levels. First, East Jerusalem is considered, under international law, occupied territory, which makes it subject to the provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention, especially Article 49, which prohibits the transfer of the occupying power’s population into occupied territory and also prohibits the confiscation of private property.
In addition, the eviction of residents who have lived in their homes for many decades constitutes a violation of fundamental rights such as the right to housing, property, and living with dignity. Settlement policies, under international humanitarian law, are also considered illegal and may, in some legal frameworks such as the Rome Statute, be classified as a war crime, given the population transfer and demographic change they entail in occupied territory.
Through direct experience of what is happening in Silwan and the surrounding neighborhoods, Fakhri Abu Diab, a Jerusalem-based researcher, field activist, and member of the Committee for the Defense of Silwan’s Lands, offers an account grounded in lived experience, explaining the impact of these policies on families and the future of their presence in the city. He also presents a vivid picture from the field that combines the human dimension with the daily details of what residents endure, alongside an account of the facts related to evictions and settlement in Jerusalem.
What is the scale of seizures and evictions in the Batn al-Hawa neighborhood so far? And what is the nature of the reality families there are living under amid the constant threat?
So far, around 23 homes in the neighborhood have been seized, while 76 apartments face the risk of immediate eviction. Families have been forcibly removed from their homes, their houses taken over, and settlers installed in their place, while other families live under the constant threat of eviction at any moment.
These cases are brought before the courts under the cover of a “legal ownership dispute,” while their essence is tied to the struggle over land and existence. The issue is not so much legal as it is profoundly political, managed through legal tools to entrench a new settlement reality.
Batn al-Hawa forms a connecting point between the al-Bustan neighborhood and the settlements in the Ras al-Amud area. Al-Bustan lies to its east, while to the west it borders Wadi Hilweh, which the occupation calls the “City of David.” From this stretch, settlement outposts connect toward Al-Aqsa Mosque, and from Ras al-Amud toward other settlements extending to the vicinity of the also-threatened Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, within a process aimed at gradually tightening the encirclement of Al-Aqsa Mosque and isolating it—a goal the occupation is pursuing systematically.
What is taking place within the plan known as “Jerusalem” or the “historic basin” aims to reshape the surroundings of Al-Aqsa Mosque and gradually isolate it from its Palestinian environment through gradual depopulation and the re-engineering of Jerusalem’s demographic and geographic reality in service of a clearly defined settlement project.
How should the nature of the targeting of Batn al-Hawa be understood? What are its dimensions?
Batn al-Hawa is an integral part of the town of Silwan, south of Al-Aqsa Mosque, and lies within what the occupation authorities call the “historic basin” or the “holy basin,” extending from Sheikh Jarrah north of the Old City to Silwan south of Al-Aqsa. It is an area considered one of the most dangerous focal points of direct targeting of the Palestinian presence in Jerusalem, with Silwan at the forefront of this targeting in terms of intensity and depth.
Batn al-Hawa faces claims by the occupation authorities and settler associations over ownership of about 5,200 square meters, on the pretext that they were Jewish properties dating back to the 19th century, between 1881 and 1886. These claims are unproven and are not based on any real legal facts, but are used as an entry point to impose facts on the ground.
The core problem lies in the legal structure through which these cases are managed, where ownership claims submitted by occupation institutions and settler associations are accepted, while residents bear the burden of proving the opposite. In other words, the rule that “the burden of proof is on the claimant” is completely reversed, so that the burden falls on the defendant, which constitutes a structural flaw in the legal system itself.
Around 900 people live in these homes, on Palestinian land that includes buildings standing for more than 50 years, some of them dating back 70 or 80 years. Part of the residents are also refugees displaced in 1948 from the western part of Jerusalem, and they possess original ownership documents there, yet these documents are not recognized in Israeli courts, reflecting a stark double standard.
The case has dragged on for about 20 years without resolution and without conclusive evidence, within a long legal process managed at a deliberately slow pace. In this context, the judiciary is not seen as a neutral body, but as part of the occupation system itself, providing legal cover for the work of settler associations and official institutions with the aim of entrenching control over the land.
How does expulsion from homes in Jerusalem affect the social and psychological lives of Palestinian families?
What is happening in Jerusalem cannot be described as home evictions or a property dispute; it is the direct expulsion of families thrown into the street without shelter after living in their homes for many years, sometimes for entire generations. For Jerusalemites in this situation, the home is not merely walls and a roof, but memory, life, and a complete bond with the land, representing the family’s history and future at once.
Losing the home does not mean only losing a place to live, but also the breakup and wide dispersal of the family. Given the impossibility of finding housing alternatives inside Jerusalem due to demolition policies and the denial of building permits, families find themselves out in the open, as if beginning a new state of displacement within their own city.
This forced transformation strikes directly at human stability. Even a normal move between homes leaves an impact, so what about being thrown into the street? With settlers inside the neighborhoods, private security companies, and permanent occupation forces, the neighborhood becomes a disturbed environment resembling a constant state of emergency.
Daily life is no longer normal; every detail has become subject to fear: children’s movements, returning from school, going to shops, and even moving around within the neighborhood. All of this is now governed by the constant possibility of assault, arrest, or confrontation.
There is also an imposed change to the social fabric itself, through the introduction of a reality alien to the environment Palestinians—especially Jerusalemites—have been accustomed to living in, within stable customs, traditions, and family relations. This forced change puts pressure on society and gradually unravels its structure.
What is happening does not affect only those expelled from their homes, but also those still inside them, as they live under constant threat and continuous pressure, while life under these conditions turns into a state of fear, anticipation, and loss of stability, culminating in a complete collapse of any sense of security.
What human impact is revealed by an incident of forced eviction in Batn al-Hawa?
What happened to the al-Shweiki family in Batn al-Hawa clearly reflects the nature of forced evictions in Jerusalem, where the family was forcibly removed from its home and its furniture thrown into the street without any regard for its humanitarian or health condition.
Among the family members is an elderly, ill woman who cannot move normally and needed care and constant accompaniment in the smallest details of her daily life. When the eviction was carried out, she found herself outside the home without any organization of her medications, despite suffering from several illnesses, including blood pressure problems, and needing medicines that require special storage conditions.
The cruelty reaches its peak at the moment of removal, when the woman was carried on the shoulders of her grandchildren and placed in the street, left facing the unknown without shelter or protection. What happened did not stop at the loss of housing, but led to a complete collapse of any sense of stability and reassurance.
From a direct human perspective, the image shows a woman looking at the house where she lived her entire life, where she married, gave birth, raised her children, and saw them married, before being forced to leave it in a single moment. This scene left an extremely harsh impact that was directly reflected in her psychological and physical condition as a result of the shock.
The case of the al-Shweiki family encapsulates the level of violence inherent in eviction operations: it does not stop at losing a house, but extends to uprooting a person from memory and place, and thrusting them suddenly into a state of exposure and instability.
How do demolition operations and changes in al-Bustan neighborhood in Silwan reflect the nature of settlement policies around Al-Aqsa Mosque?
Al-Bustan neighborhood in Silwan is one of the most targeted areas in Jerusalem, covering an area of about 70 dunams and including around 115 homes inhabited by nearly 1,500 people, most of them children.
The occupation authorities and West Jerusalem Municipality justify this targeting and the demolition of homes by claiming they were built without permits, even though they do not grant Palestinians any possibility of obtaining permits in the first place. In addition, the handling of the file includes buildings erected before 1967, despite their not requiring any licensing procedures.
As the plan develops, the features of the neighborhood are gradually changing, with parts of it being turned into parking lots for settlers, alongside biblical park projects aimed at recasting the identity of the place and imposing a new settlement character on it.
Since October 7, there has been a clear acceleration in demolitions, with 54 homes out of 115 demolished, either by bulldozers or by forcing residents to carry out self-demolition.
Self-demolition carries double cruelty, as families are forced to tear down their homes with their own hands to avoid high financial costs imposed by the occupation municipality, turning the home into an experience of forced collapse rather than a space for life.
As for its location, al-Bustan lies in the heart of Silwan, no more than 300 meters south of Al-Aqsa Mosque, placing it within a broader path aimed at choking the Old City and isolating the mosque through policies based on eviction, demolition, and the reshaping of demographic reality.
How do settlement plans in Sheikh Jarrah reflect the mechanisms of changing ownership and geographic identity in Jerusalem?
In Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, settlement plans based on ownership claims dating back to before 1948 are intensifying, and these are used as a tool to seize Palestinian homes, with a number of them already taken over in recent years. By contrast, ownership of the neighborhood’s land belongs to Palestinian and Jordanian parties under an agreement concluded in the 1950s between the Jordanian government and the UNRWA agency, designated to house Palestinian families forcibly displaced in 1948, particularly from neighborhoods such as Baq’a and others.
At the same time, there are plans to build an 11-story structure on confiscated land measuring about 5 dunams, designated for what is called a Jewish religious school (yeshiva). Although presented as an educational facility, it includes permanent housing for hundreds of ultra-Orthodox Haredi students, making it in practice a fixed settlement outpost inside the neighborhood. The choice of location was not random, but comes in the context of planting a settlement outpost within the Palestinian fabric under educational cover, with the aim of entrenching a permanent presence and imposing a new reality on the ground.
The choice of location was not random, as it lies next to Sheikh Jarrah Mosque and the shrine of Prince Husam al-Din al-Jarrahi, one of the commanders who accompanied Salah ad-Din ibn Ayyub in the liberation of Jerusalem in 1187, after whom the neighborhood was later named, given his religious, educational, and Sufi role in the area.
The project does not target only the urban structure, but extends to erasing historical and religious symbols and recasting the narrative of the place by changing names and landmarks and replacing them with biblical and settlement terminology.
This trend comes within what is known as Jerusalem’s historic basin, stretching from Sheikh Jarrah to Silwan, where settlement projects work together to dismantle the geographic continuity between Palestinian neighborhoods and isolate northern Jerusalem from the Old City and Al-Aqsa Mosque by implanting settlements and settlement outposts that separate the city from its Palestinian surroundings.
What message and calls are being put forward in confronting the policies of Judaizing Jerusalem and the systematic change to its identity and reality?
The occupation is deploying the full capabilities of the occupation state to impose a Judaizing settlement reality on the city of Jerusalem, within a continuous process that reshapes the city’s features and identity on a daily basis.
Responsibility for preserving Jerusalem and its holy sites cannot remain confined to Jerusalemites alone; it is a collective responsibility that should be turned into concrete projects that strengthen the steadfastness of Jerusalem and its people and ensure its survival as an Arab and Islamic city, instead of mere words that never find their way into implementation on the ground.
But reality is moving in a different direction, with accelerating Judaization projects pushing Jerusalemites to feel like strangers in their own city, amid a continuous change in identity and landmarks as a result of settlement and the intensification of funded projects to reshape the landscape.
What is issued by Palestinian, Arab, Islamic, and even international institutions generally does not go beyond reactions to occupation policies, without any real plans or strategies to anchor Jerusalem and its people.
Meanwhile, the occupation continues demolishing homes to alter the demographic composition and weaken the Palestinian presence, without any corresponding housing or reconstruction projects to ensure families remain in their neighborhoods and strengthen their resilience after demolition.
As this reality continues, the absence of effective intervention threatens to accelerate the implementation of an approach entrenched by Benjamin Netanyahu since the 1990s, based on penetrating Palestinian neighborhoods through settlement and linking them to broader projects aimed at imposing a permanent reality in Jerusalem.
Therefore, it is essential to work to protect Jerusalem’s identity and prevent its erasure or alteration, while intensifying efforts on practical, implementable projects on the ground focused on investment, protection, and strengthening residents’ steadfastness.
