Israel just bulldozed Palestinians out of their homes and Britain is about to expel its envoys
1 hour ago · 6 October 2026Share
IDF D9 armored bulldozer fighting in Gaza, Swords of Iron War. File photo.IDF Spokesperson's Unit photographer · CC BY-SA 3.0
Israel just bulldozed a building with dozens of people inside it.
And its own National Security Minister rode along to watch.
Itamar Ben Gvir climbed into a bulldozer this morning as Israeli forces tore down a five-storey apartment block in Al-Tur, in occupied East Jerusalem. Ten apartments. Around seventy people lost their homes. Most of them were women and children.
Israel says the building had no permit.
But residents had been fighting that exact decision since 2011. More than a decade of legal challenges. More than a decade of rejected applications.
So what notice did they actually get? One day.
Residents say the final notice came the day before. Less than 24 hours to clear a home.
Fayez Khalfawi, who lived there, says bulldozers surrounded the building in the middle of the night. He says soldiers forced the doors open and would not let people take their things.
Another resident, Hanine Hreibat, told AFP that police gave her about 10 minutes. She says she only managed to grab medicine, money, a handbag and her ID.
And Ben Gvir filmed the whole thing.
He posted on X that the bulldozers of governance never rest for a moment. He said he had come in person to make sure his policy was being carried out on the ground.
That's Israel's National Security Minister personally supervising seventy people losing their homes, then posting about it.
The Jerusalem Governorate, which handles Palestinian affairs in the city, called his presence official incitement. It says he is using the demolition to campaign for votes. Israel holds a national election later this month.
And this is not one isolated case. The governorate says Israel has carried out 427 demolitions or levellings in Jerusalem this year alone, from January to the end of September.
Now here's what else happened on the very same morning.
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Overview of the city of Jerusalem, claimed by both Israel and the Palestinian National Authority as their capital. File photo. Charles from Port Chester, New York · CC BY 2.0
Britain is threatening to expel Israeli envoys. One for one.
Israel has ordered Britain to shut its consulate in occupied East Jerusalem by this Thursday. That consulate is how Britain deals with Palestinians in Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza. It runs separately from the UK embassy in Tel Aviv. Israel says the British staff working there lose their diplomatic status once the 30 days run out.
Britain is reportedly warning it will expel one Israeli envoy for every British envoy pushed out. Simon Walters, Britain's ambassador to Israel, is reported to have delivered that warning himself. Neither government has confirmed the number. It comes from Israeli media reports that remain unverified.
Jonathan Powell, the UK's National Security Adviser, flew to Israel last week to try to get the closure reversed. The talks went nowhere.
So why did Israel order the closure in the first place?
Because about a month ago, Britain banned trade in goods from illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, and sanctioned British firms helping build them.
Ed Miliband, Britain's Foreign Secretary, says Britain weighed the costs and the benefits of acting, and decided it could not stand by simply because it feared how Israel would react.
And there's a legal problem sitting underneath all of this. Dominic Grieve, a former UK attorney general, has reportedly advised the Foreign Office that closing the consulate is itself unlawful. His reasoning: the United Nations and most of its member states regard East Jerusalem as Palestinian territory, not somewhere Israel can order foreign missions out of.
Hamas has condemned Ben Gvir's role in the demolition. It calls it part of what it describes as the Israeli government's policy of state-sponsored terrorism, and part of a widening campaign against Palestinian homes in Jerusalem.
So picture both sides of this story at once.
A minister on camera, celebrating the eviction of seventy people.
And two governments threatening to throw out each other's envoys, over the one building that is supposed to represent Britain to those same Palestinians.
Neither government has confirmed exactly how many people were displaced beyond that figure of around seventy. Neither has confirmed whether the expulsions are really about to happen.
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