Resource center
The Grand Land Theft - Ramifications of Israel’s Registration of Land Ownership in East Jerusalem
Reports
Bimkom and Ir Amim's joint analysis paper examines the current status and dire ramifications of the State of Israel’s formal registration of land ownership in East Jerusalem.
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December 26th Supreme Court Hearing on al-Walajeh Appeal Could Lead to Largescale Destruction of Village
Reports
7 December 2021
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The State of Education in East Jerusalem 2020: Discrimination Against the Background of Covid19
Reports
Access PDF Here: The State of Edu
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Informal Education in East Jerusalem - A Study of Needs and Recommendations
Reports
Government Decision 3790 for “Reduction of Socio-Economic Gaps and Economic
Development in East Jerusalem,” from May 13, 2018, provides for socio-economic
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Over the course of 2017, the government of Israel intensified its two-pronged Jerusalem strategy to reinforce the city’s status as the capital of Israel while dismantling Palestinian Jerusalem. This dual approach is being carried out both on the periphery of the city and within the heart of East Jerusalem – the Old City and surrounding band of Palestinian neighborhoods. Israel is actively working to alter the boundaries of Jerusalem through legislation, through the creation of Palestinian enclaves on the outskirts of the city, and through unchecked building of Israeli neighborhoods/settlements and highway infrastructure to link the city to the three adjacent settlement blocs in service to the vision of a “Greater Jerusalem.” In parallel, Israel is acting within the core of East Jerusalem – the Old City and its environs – by promoting an unprecedented number of touristic settlement initiatives inside Palestinian neighborhoods, advancing evictions and uprooting Palestinian families, demolishing homes (throughout East Jerusalem), enabling the erosion of the status quo on the Temple Mount/Haram al Sharif, stepping up policing activities under the guise of “governance,” and expunging the Palestinian narrative in Jerusalem.
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Education Report 2017: Fifty Years of Neglect
Reports
In recent years, the school system in East Jerusalem has been coping with a continued shortage of classrooms as well as the highest dropout rates recorded in data collected by Israel; while at the same time confronting the considerable stress being exerted, mainly by the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Jerusalem Affairs, to impose the Israeli curriculum on the Palestinian national community in the city. The combination of neglected infrastructure and elaborate political attempts to influence content has left the school system in East Jerusalem in dire straits. Along with mounting pressure from the Israeli government, the disparities reviewed in this report have serious ramifications for tens of thousands of Palestinian children in East Jerusalem.
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Deliberately Planned: A Policy to Thwart Planning in the Palestinian Neighborhoods of Jerusalem
Reports
This report examines three plans in East Jerusalem that reflect the efforts made by Palestinian residents to eventually build legally and eliminate the threat of demolition. Our examination of the obstacle course faced by these plans shows that the Israeli authorities do everything within their power to delay the process and ultimately thwart any detailed plan of significant scale, effectively preventing lawful construction by Palestinians.
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This year’s annual survey presents new data on the growing shortage of classrooms and dropout rates in East Jerusalem, exposing the surge in unofficial schools filling the vacuum of municipal facilities and mounting pressure on Palestinians to adopt the Israeli curriculum.
This is the first annual education report since the 2011 High Court ruling establishing that the staggering shortage of classrooms in East Jerusalem in the official educational system constitutes a violation of the constitutional right to education for the students of East Jerusalem. The Court ruling mandated the Jerusalem Municipality and the Ministry of Education to ensure that within five years (by February 2016) all students in East Jerusalem who elect to study in the official system would be able to fulfill that expectation. The Court also ruled that in order to realize the Compulsory Education Law, the state must underwrite the tuition of any student who is unable to secure a spot in the official education system and who is consequently forced to enroll in one of the recognized but unofficial schools operating in East Jerusalem.
Five years after the High Court ruling:
>>> This is the first annual education report since the 2011 High Court ruling establishing that the staggering shortage of classrooms in East Jerusalem in the official educational system constitutes a violation of the constitutional right to education for the students of East Jerusalem. The Court ruling mandated the Jerusalem Municipality and the Ministry of Education to ensure that within five years (by February 2016) all students in East Jerusalem who elect to study in the official system would be able to fulfill that expectation. The Court also ruled that in order to realize the Compulsory Education Law, the state must underwrite the tuition of any student who is unable to secure a spot in the official education system and who is consequently forced to enroll in one of the recognized but unofficial schools operating in East Jerusalem.
Five years after the High Court ruling:
- The shortage of classrooms in East Jerusalem – which now stands at 2,672 – has actually only worsened.
- A total of 23,500 Palestinian children in East Jerusalem are not registered at a known educational institution; and this year, for the first time, the number of students in unofficial classrooms in East Jerusalem exceeded the number of those in official institutions.
- East Jerusalem has the highest dropout rates in Israel. Every year, more than 1,300 students drop out of the education system in East Jerusalem.
The report – a joint publication of Ir Amim and Peace Now – focuses on the rapid escalation of private settlement activity in the heart of Batan al-Hawa, a Palestinian community in Silwan, located just outside the Old City walls within clear sight of Al-Aqsa. Batan al-Hawa is now the site of the largest attempted settler takeover in East Jerusalem, representing not only the large-scale displacement of an entire community but also the complicity of the Israeli government in facilitating private settlement in the Historic Basin.
This activity began over a decade ago, but has dramatically accelerated in the past two years. By the end of 2015, the settlers had quadrupled the number of housing units in their possession, having taken over a total of some 27 units in six buildings. In addition, 12 eviction claims relating to 51 families – most initiated over the past year – are currently pending. One hundred families – roughly 600 Palestinians – are at risk of displacement, many of whom stand to become refugees for the second time, having lost their properties in West Jerusalem after 1948.
The settlement in Batan al-Hawa now being developed by Ateret Cohanim is an integral part of efforts by settler organizations and Israeli authorities to consolidate Jewish control of the Old City and the surrounding Palestinian neighborhoods, to create an irreversible reality in the Holy Basin around the Old City that deliberately subverts efforts to negotiate an agreed political resolution on Jerusalem.
>>> This activity began over a decade ago, but has dramatically accelerated in the past two years. By the end of 2015, the settlers had quadrupled the number of housing units in their possession, having taken over a total of some 27 units in six buildings. In addition, 12 eviction claims relating to 51 families – most initiated over the past year – are currently pending. One hundred families – roughly 600 Palestinians – are at risk of displacement, many of whom stand to become refugees for the second time, having lost their properties in West Jerusalem after 1948.
The settlement in Batan al-Hawa now being developed by Ateret Cohanim is an integral part of efforts by settler organizations and Israeli authorities to consolidate Jewish control of the Old City and the surrounding Palestinian neighborhoods, to create an irreversible reality in the Holy Basin around the Old City that deliberately subverts efforts to negotiate an agreed political resolution on Jerusalem.
Planning, Building, and Settlements in East Jerusalem 2015
Reports
During the nine months of negotiations led by US Secretary of State John Kerry – from July 2013 through April 2014 – Israel published tenders for 3,020 housing units in East Jerusalem. Since the failure of the talks in 2014 and through the end of November 2015, Israel published almost no tenders over the Green Line, in East Jerusalem in particular. Strong pressure by the Jewish Home party to advance construction as a condition for its support of the state budget finally led to the publication of a significant tender for 438 housing units in Ramat Shlomo.
This being said, actual construction related to previously approved plans continued. In addition to the construction of hundreds of housing units in Ramot (to the west of Begin Highway, toward the Givat Ze’ev settlement bloc) and preparations for the construction of 708 housing units on the western slopes of Gilo, rapid construction is underway in Har Homa C, which will extend the wedge between Bethlehem and East Jerusalem.
The slow pace of plan promotion since the second half of 2015 contrasts with the unprecedented wave of seizures of Palestinian properties in the Old City and Historic Basin by private settler associations, with the support of state bodies. This trend includes the eviction of Palestinian families from seized properties. The two areas of most concentrated activity are the Muslim Quarter of the Old City and the Batan al-Hawa neighborhood of Silwan, where members of the Ateret Cohanim settler organization have been responsible for the eviction of 17 Palestinian families, more than doubling the number of properties it has managed to seize. Eviction claims were submitted against 15 additional Palestinian families, and approximately 70 more families face the threat of similar action.
On Ma’alot Khalidiya Street in the Muslim Quarter of the Old City, settlers seized a living space after evicting a Palestinian resident, two Palestinian families on the street received eviction notices for imminent dates and new claims were submitted against four additional families at the end of the year. Efforts to evict Palestinian families are also underway in Sheikh Jarrah.
Over the past year, the authorities demolished 52 housing units in East Jerusalem, displacing 81 people. The authorities also demolished 37 structures used for non-residential purposes.
All of these trends must be given serious consideration when evaluating the pace of settlement building in Jerusalem over the last year.
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Following the failure of the Kerry talks in April 2014, the promotion of Israeli building plans over the Green Line, particularly in East Jerusalem, slowed significantly. In previous years, Israel forwarded building plans and published tenders for construction in East Jerusalem in the range of thousands of housing units each year. In 2015, the picture was different, with the scope of building plans and marketing of tenders much more limited than in past years. Most of the major building plans in East Jerusalem were already approved in 2012. The number of tenders issued in 2015 for approved plans was relatively minor and very few new plans reached the planning committees, even when the authorities explicitly stated that plans would be promoted.
During the nine months of negotiations led by US Secretary of State John Kerry – from July 2013 through April 2014 – Israel published tenders for 3,020 housing units in East Jerusalem. Since the failure of the talks in 2014 and through the end of November 2015, Israel published almost no tenders over the Green Line, in East Jerusalem in particular. Strong pressure by the Jewish Home party to advance construction as a condition for its support of the state budget finally led to the publication of a significant tender for 438 housing units in Ramat Shlomo.
This being said, actual construction related to previously approved plans continued. In addition to the construction of hundreds of housing units in Ramot (to the west of Begin Highway, toward the Givat Ze’ev settlement bloc) and preparations for the construction of 708 housing units on the western slopes of Gilo, rapid construction is underway in Har Homa C, which will extend the wedge between Bethlehem and East Jerusalem.
The slow pace of plan promotion since the second half of 2015 contrasts with the unprecedented wave of seizures of Palestinian properties in the Old City and Historic Basin by private settler associations, with the support of state bodies. This trend includes the eviction of Palestinian families from seized properties. The two areas of most concentrated activity are the Muslim Quarter of the Old City and the Batan al-Hawa neighborhood of Silwan, where members of the Ateret Cohanim settler organization have been responsible for the eviction of 17 Palestinian families, more than doubling the number of properties it has managed to seize. Eviction claims were submitted against 15 additional Palestinian families, and approximately 70 more families face the threat of similar action.
On Ma’alot Khalidiya Street in the Muslim Quarter of the Old City, settlers seized a living space after evicting a Palestinian resident, two Palestinian families on the street received eviction notices for imminent dates and new claims were submitted against four additional families at the end of the year. Efforts to evict Palestinian families are also underway in Sheikh Jarrah.
Over the past year, the authorities demolished 52 housing units in East Jerusalem, displacing 81 people. The authorities also demolished 37 structures used for non-residential purposes.
All of these trends must be given serious consideration when evaluating the pace of settlement building in Jerusalem over the last year.
Falling between the Cracks: Education Report 2015
Reports
The Supreme Court ruled in February 2011 that the tremendous shortage of classrooms in the official school system in East Jerusalem const
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Displaced in their Own City (abstract)
Reports
The neighborhoods of East Jerusalem left outside the Separation Barrier provide an extreme illustration of broader processes in East Jerusalem and Israel’s general attitude toward the Palestinian population of the city. Ir Amim’s report, Displaced in Their Own City: The Impact of Israeli Policy in East Jerusalem on the Palestinian Neighborhoods of the City beyond the Separation Barrier, offers a comprehensive review of the various aspects of Israeli policy in East Jerusalem that have resulted in the current situation. As the report explains, tens of thousands of Palestinian residents of Jerusalem have been disconnected from the city following the establishment of the Separation Barrier. They have also been near completely abandoned by the State and by the Municipality of Jerusalem.
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Displaced in their Own City
Reports
The neighborhoods of East Jerusalem left outside the Separation Barrier provide an extreme illu
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Jerusalem: The Rising Cost of Peace
Reports
The goal of this paper is to analyze the factors that will contribute to shaping a resolution on Jerusalem and to evaluate the relative feasibility of achieving a political solution to the conflict at this specific juncture in time. Using the Clinton Parameters as a base point, we outline actions taken on the ground since 2000 on three interdependent levels: within the Jerusalem Municipality (within the annexation line); within the Historic Basin surrounding the Old City and the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif; and within Greater Jerusalem. We look at the state of affairs in 2000, actions taken between 2000 and the end of 2014 and developments occurring within the most recent two-year period.
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Education Report 2014: Shortage of Classrooms in East Jerusalem
Reports
Ir Amim’s monitoring focuses on the number of East Jerusalem classrooms still to be allocated and analysis of the progress of construction in the last 13 years since the issue was first brought before the Court. Regrettably, despite its recognition of the severe shortage and despite the commitment of professionals in the Jerusalem Municipality, the pace of classroom construction is not keeping up with population growth and, as a result, the number of required classrooms is actually growing each year.
A summary of this year's monitoring data indicates:
- At least 8,100 East Jerusalem children are not presently enrolled in any known educational institution.
- A total of 3,055 classrooms is required to close the gap: 408 school classrooms, 330 kindergarten classrooms, 681 classrooms to replace existing substandard ones and another 1,636 classrooms needed for children attending unofficial schools due to insufficient slots in the public school system.
- In September 2014, 57 new classrooms are expected to open. Another 69 classrooms will be rented.
- From 2001 until the opening of the upcoming school year, the Municipality will have built a total of 438 classrooms, which amounts to a bare 14% of the number required to close the existing gap.
Education Report 2013: The Failing East Jerusalem Education System
Reports
This report focuses on the severe shortage of classrooms in East Jerusalem, putting the number of missing classrooms at 2,200 - double t
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