In broad daylight on June 27, 2024,1 about a dozen armed Jewish settlers stormed a residence belonging to the historic Khalidi Library complex in the Old City of Jerusalem, wielding documents they claimed proved the property was theirs.

As police aided them in breaking the locks and settlers took to ransacking the house, the neighborhood erupted. Family members and neighbors rushed in to try and stop the violent takeover, only to find themselves harassed by the Israeli police.

“[It was] a very dangerous situation . . . the police were protecting [the settlers] and being extremely aggressive,” family member Sami Khalidi, who was present when the attack occurred, told Jerusalem Story during a visit by the French Consulate to the library on July 11, 2024.2 “A lot of members of the family were beaten up. A lot of people [in the neighborhood] got stitches.”

The Khalidi family traces its history in Jerusalem back to the seventh century AD. The Khalidi Library was established in 1900 and was the first Arab public library established by private initiative in Palestine. Its invaluable historic collection includes one of the largest of Arabic manuscripts in Palestine in the world.

The house is part of the Khalidi Library complex, which is made up of an annex, an exhibition center, and the private home and is maintained through a waqf dhurri (a Muslim religious trust established by the founder for the benefit of a family) established by Shaykh Muhammad Ali al-Khalidi around 1828. Due to this, under Islamic law, the property can’t be sold, mortgaged, or transferred to another owner in perpetuity and is dedicated to remaining in the trust for future generations.3

Khalil Khalidi, one of the three administrators of the family waqf, told the TV station al-Mayadeen, “It’s not just this house, but the entire Bab al-Silsila Street from the Haram [Bab al-Silsila] Gate to the Khalidi Library. Almost all the houses on the right and left belong to the Khalidi waqf, so this house is very important. If this house is lost, it will be like a domino effect; they will start taking them house by house, and the entire neighborhood will be lost.”4

The waqf representatives then turned to the local police and submitted a complaint, but the police refused to cooperate and persisted in protecting the settlers.5

Thus, the settlers, led by one Erez (or Eretz) Zakai,6 were able to temporarily occupy the library using a police court order indicating they could seize the property, because the house was ostensibly sold to them. However, these ownership documents were, in fact, crudely forged.

Raja Khalidi, also a waqf administrator, told the French diplomats7 that while the details are murky since the family hasn’t seen all of the settlers’ paperwork, what the family does know is the settlers relied on the forged signature of the prior home’s tenant, a Khalidi family member and sister of the former head trustee of the library. She moved to Jordan in September 2023 and died in March 2024, yet the notary public claims she signed the document in December 2023. Shortly after, the settlers were somehow able to obtain an order from the Jerusalem District Court in April 2024 stating they purchased the home, and a notarization stamp from an Israeli notary public.

On the morning of June 28, 2024, the day after the settler takeover, the Khalidi family, along with their attorney, Sana Doueik, appeared before the the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court (the settlers’ lawyer was a no-show) and secured a preliminary order immediately evicting the settlers and allowing the family to change the lock, although neither side was to enter the property. The judge set the date of June 30 for a subsequent hearing before both parties.8

At that subsequent hearing, once it was clear that the settlers’ papers were forgeries (according to Khalil, even aside from the blatant inconsistencies with the date of the supposed signing being after the signer had died, the language in their documents was not the same as the language of the official papers, the terminology was not the same, and even the seal was not the same stamp), Judge Mika Benkhai upheld the eviction order and maintained the property should remain in the possession of the Khalidi family.

The settlers appealed the decision on July 1, 2024, demanding the Khalidi family be barred from their property. The appeal was finally rejected on July 4, 2024, and the court issued a permanent injunction banning the settlers from the Khalidi Library.9

“We didn’t actually see them leave, because they left from the roof, because, we suspect, the yeshiva right next to the house is involved, and they went through [the roof to] there instead of leaving from the door,” Sami told Jerusalem Story.

According to Raja, “They brought in religious texts and prayer rugs or mats and food and overnight they installed cameras from the roofs of the yeshiva.”

While the case was resolved in the family’s favor, concerns remain that the complex or parts of it could still be seized at a later date.

Raja added the settler takeover has raised wider alarm over how Israel may treat waqf property going forward. Located in the center of the Old City, steps away from one of the main gates to al-Aqsa Mosque (Bab al-Silsila) and the Western Wall, and with a view of both al-Aqsa Mosque’s iconic golden dome and the Western Wall Plaza, the library is prime Old City real estate that is coveted by both settlers and the state.

But it’s not just the Khalidi family waqf that is at risk. According to Jerusalemite researcher Fawaz Atiyah, who works to document the history of every Palestinian property in the Old City for the Society for the Preservation of the Endowment and Jerusalem Heritage Waqfna (“Our Waqf”), more than 70 percent of the private property in the Old City is classified as waqf dhurri, meaning that it cannot be touched.10

“In order to encroach illegally and confiscate—because Israel is planning to with the Old City—and in doing so, each one of us is going have to prove that this unit is the one mentioned in this waqf deed (waqfiyya) of 300 years ago,” Raja said.

The family is particularly worried Israel could only recognize the waqf’s beneficiaries who are Israeli residents and therefore exploit the issue of residency to justify seizing some of the property.

“That’s the way Israel works,” Raja said. “And we have to prepare.”

The Khalidis currently own 45 properties, although Israel expropriated 15 of their properties in 1968 after the state occupied East Jerusalem in 1967 and subsumed many of those Khalidi buildings to expand the Old City’s Jewish Quarter. One of the properties, which was part of the Khalidi Library complex, was occupied by the Chief Rabbi of Israel, Shlomo Goren, and then expropriated by the state on some purported security basis. The settlers built a yeshiva on its roof that now abuts the library, adding to concerns that the property is highly desirable in their eyes.

Khalil told Jerusalem Story that the Khalidi family waqf is considered one of the largest and most important endowments in Jerusalem, and the Khalidis are one of the most organized and proactive Palestinian families in the city, taking meticulous care of its properties. Raja and the other two coadministrators manage four of the family waqfs in Jerusalem established beginning in the 1700s by various ancestors for different branches of the family.

The family is fortunate enough to have had its original ownership deeds recently ratified by the Israeli legal system. Many Palestinian property owners don’t possess such documents. Given Jerusalem has been occupied by different authorities throughout its history, deeds may be under Jordanian or Turkish domain. In other cases, property was inherited without any formal documentation. Without official paperwork, Israeli settlers are in a better position to steal property from Palestinians.

Fawaz told Jerusalem Story, “Jerusalem as a whole is an endowment, whether charitable, Islamic, or Christian, and this was an impenetrable bulwark against the flood of loss, seizure, and Judaization. Every Jerusalemite considers this heritage a pride and history that must be preserved and passed on to future generations. This is why I expect these attempts to increase in the future, despite the miserable failure that the settlers suffered in trying to seize the Khalidi property in Bab al-Silsila.”

“They’re changing reality on the ground,” Raja said.

As settlers move in, they bring with them more and more police and private security guards, gradually turning the Old City from a sacred space to a zone resembling a security prison.

Yet, amid the looming threat of theft, the family remains resilient and buoyed by the community’s support.

“The family was mobilized, the Old City was up in arms, and videos were going viral . . . Jerusalem could have exploded,” Raja said of the day the settlers occupied the home, but ultimately, “Jerusalem defended itself.”

For its part, the family plans to continue investigating which settler groups were behind the attempted takeover, how they are funded, and how the family can sue for damages.