HRF Files U.S. Prosecution Request Against Jerusalem Deputy Mayor and ILF Founder Arieh King over War Crimes and Incitement to Genocide

25 August 2026, Brussels, Belgium / New York, United States – Following a criminal complaint in Canada filed with our partners at the Legal Centre for Palestine (LCP), The Hind Rajab Foundation (HRF) filed a request for prosecution with the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) against Arieh King, Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem and founder of the Israel Land Fund (ILF), for his involvement in the war crime of unlawful transfer and incitement to genocide. The request was submitted ahead of King’s expected presence in the U.S. on 31 August.

The request details how King—a longtime leader in the settler movement in Occupied East Jerusalem—used his positions as Deputy Mayor and ILF founder to displace Palestinians from their homes in Occupied East Jerusalem and facilitate their replacement with Jewish settlers in an explicit policy of ethnic cleansing. The request also details how King has used his public platform to incite genocide, with particular attention paid to his incitement against UNRWA.

Incitement to Genocide

As the request details, King, a dual U.K.-Israeli national, has used his public platform as a leader in the settler movement and as Deputy Mayor to publicly and directly incite to genocide in both Gaza and the rest of Occupied Palestine—a crime under U.S. law (18 U.S.C. §1091). 

King has repeatedly called for the cessation of all aid to Gaza and “saluted” Israeli settlers when they obstructed and destroyed aid bound for Gaza during the height of the famine, advocated for the forced expulsion of all of Gaza’s residents, stated that Palestinians have an inherently “bloodthirsty culture,” and called for the complete destruction of all cities in Gaza.

In one instance, King posted a photograph of Israeli soldiers standing over a crowd of stripped, blindfolded, and kneeling Palestinian men, with the caption “If it were up to me, I would have dispatched D-9 bulldozers and put them behind the mounds of dirt and would have given the order to cover all these hundreds of ants, while they’re still alive. They aren't human beings and not human animals. They're subhuman and that's how they should be treated.”

Left: King’s since-removed X post, in which he publicly and directly incites genocide against Palestinians. Right: King, flanked by settlers and Kahanist activists, mocking Palestinian activist Muhammad Abu Hummus during a visit to the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, May 6, 2021. (Screenshot)

King also led the movement to destroy the UNRWA Headquarters in Occupied East Jerusalem—a criminal act that was ultimately carried out by Israeli forces on 20 January 2026. During King’s years long campaign to ban UNRWA and destroy its facilities, he repeatedly referred to the aid organization as a “terror, Nazi organization,” applauded an arson attack on UNRWA Headquarters and incited further violence, and consistently cast UNRWA staff and facilities as legitimate military targets. In one video shared by King on his public Facebook page, he promised to continue fighting to “throw out, annihilate and kill all members of UNRWA.”

As numerous international organizations have pointed out, the defunding and destruction of UNRWA is central to Israel’s genocide in Gaza, and UNRWA staff and facilities have been consistently targeted by the Israeli military: as of 16 July 2026, 392 UNRWA employees and support staff have been killed by Israel since October 2023 and nearly all UNRWA facilities in Gaza have been impacted by violence.

The UNRWA headquarters in East Jerusalem is demolished by heavy machinery. © UNRWA

War Crimes: The Ethnic Cleansing of Occupied East Jerusalem

King founded the ILF in 2007 with the express purpose of ensuring maximum Jewish presence and preventing “hostile and enemy elements to acquire assets and establish themselves on the ground.” King has never sought to hide his goal of expelling Palestinians from their land.In 2014, King handed out flyers to Jerusalem’s Arab population which stated, “In the Torah it is also written that the land of Israel, this small land, belongs to the Jewish people alone and it is forbidden for others to live here in a permanent manner.”

Since its founding, the ILF has used discriminatory Israeli land laws to dispossess Palestinians across Occupied East Jerusalem and replace them with Jewish settlers. Even after King left the ILF and began his tenure as Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem, he has continued to work to displace Palestinians from Occupied East Jerusalem, particularly from Silwan and Sheikh Jarrah. 

These transfers of Palestinians from their homes in Occupied East Jerusalem to other locations in the Occupied Palestinian Territories constitute a grave breach of Geneva Convention IV—the unlawful transfer of protected persons —and thus constitute a war crime under the U.S. War Crimes Act (18 U.S.C. §2441). 

Statements from the Hind Rajab Foundation

Jake Romm, U.S. Representative at HRF

“Arieh King has made it his life’s work to remove Palestinians from their land—either through Israel’s discriminatory legal system or through force. The Fourth Geneva Convention’s prohibition on unlawful transfers was intended to ensure the preservation of “the familial and societal bonds of protected persons”—and it is precisely these bonds which King is attempting to break. That is, through his incitement to genocide—his advocacy for the complete destruction of Gaza, the complete ethnic cleansing of Occupied Palestine, and the destruction of UNRWA’s life-saving and sustaining infrastructure—and his war crimes, King is attempting to destroy the Palestinian people as such.

Not only does King’s Israel Land Fund already reportedly receive the majority of its funding from a New York based charity in likely violation of U.S. charity laws, King is now returning to the U.S. to solicit further investments for his genocidal project. The U.S. must act in line with its international and domestic legal obligations and arrest, prosecute, and punish King before he can do any more damage to Palestine and its people.”

Dyab Abou Jahjah, Director General at HRF:

“Just today, Arieh King gloated over the forced closure of the last UNRWA compound in Occupied East Jerusalem, a closure that will deny vocational training to 350 Palestinian boys from refugee camps. This is the direct consequence of years of incitement against UNRWA and of an environment in which such conduct carries no consequence. Impunity allows perpetrators to travel freely, raise funds, build political connections, and continue their activities as if international crimes do not matter. We intend to change that. Wherever credible evidence exists and jurisdiction is available, we will act.

King’s expected arrival in the United States gives us such an opportunity. This case is about more than one man: those involved in the dispossession and attempted destruction of a people should not be able to move freely behind a shield of impunity. International crimes must have international consequences.”