From 1967 to 1993, successive Israeli governments laid the foundations for an expanding settlement enterprise to Judaize Jerusalem and its surroundings.
Israel uses the 1950 Absentees’ Property Law and several amendments to it to confiscate Palestinian property across East Jerusalem and give it to Jewish settlers.
Israel’s settlements in and around Jerusalem take the shape of three rings that contribute to Judaizing the city and fragmenting its Palestinian communities.
One of Jerusalem’s most important villages, al-Walaja, has been suffocated by Israeli settlements and their accompanying infrastructure and converted into an open-air prison.
Americans are heavily involved in settler aggressions against Palestinians in Jerusalem that result in their dispossession.
In Silwan, art installations painted with powerful messages offer a sense of dignity, resilience, and hope to a community under continuous threat.
The Hajajla family house in al-Walaja, built before 1967 with clearly documented ownership, could not be destroyed or evacuated. So the state invested millions to ghettoize it.
How Israel seeks to reshape the broader Jerusalem region, ensuring permanent control and blocking the possibility of Palestinian communal life
Twenty years on, Israel’s Separation Wall has wholly reconfigured the geopolitical fabric of Jerusalem and its hinterland, shattering Palestinian communities, families, and lives.