Jerusalem Pulse: Recent Research Roundup

Jerusalem Pulse is a periodic digest of the latest research shedding light on the multifaceted issues surrounding the lives of Palestinians of Jerusalem.

Jerusalem Story has curated a selection of key articles, papers, and reports by researchers and relevant NGOs, both local and international, that offer insight into some of the exceptional challenges faced by the Palestinians of Jerusalem.

This roundup aims to monitor and document trends as they unfold over time and will serve as a vital resource for anyone seeking a deeper understanding of the evolving dynamics, geopolitical developments, socioeconomic trends, human rights concerns, and scholarly analysis concerning the Palestinians of Jerusalem.

In a historic, lengthy, and detailed advisory opinion, delivered on July 19, 2024, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) concluded that the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories since 1967 is unlawful and called for its immediate end.1 The ICJ also called for the cessation of any new settlement activities and the evacuation of settlers, along with compensation for the material and moral losses of the Palestinians.

The court emphasized the duty of states and international organizations, including the United Nations (UN), not to recognize the existing illegal situation, and urged the UN, the UN General Assembly, and the UN Security Council to consider additional measures to end the occupation forthwith. The court noted that Israel’s violations of Palestinians’ right to self-determination and the implementation of discriminatory policies amount to segregation/apartheid, exacerbating the fragmentation of the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and violating international law.

For the second year in a row, 21 Israeli human rights organizations have jointly produced a report on “The State of the Occupation—Year 57.” This report (available in English and Hebrew) surveys human rights developments in the occupied Palestinian Territories (oPT) over the past year. As the introduction frames it:

With respect to East Jerusalem, the report summarizes the year’s developments with respect to planning and building, settlement expansion, the Holy Basin around the Old City, home demolitions, restrictions of movement, and police violence and arrests. It traces how efforts to dispossess Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem intensified under the shadow of war in late 2023, with several communities facing mass expulsions. Concurrently, Israel is steadily advancing the settlement of land title (SOLT) procedure across East Jerusalem to transfer Palestinian land to Israeli-Jewish ownership, in violation of both Israeli and international law. In doing so, it aims to disrupt Palestinian urban continuity and hinder future political agreements. In conclusion, the report warns that “Israel’s unabated support for settler organizations threatens to forever change Jerusalem’s multi-faith character.”2

In an article published in al-Muntaqa—New Perspectives on Arab Studies earlier this year, titled “Assessing the Economic and Social Impacts of Israel’s War on Palestine,” Raja Khalidi and Qais Iwidat examined how the key impacts of Israel’s war on Gaza has affected the Palestinian economy in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the 1948 areas. As far as East Jerusalem, which is our primary focus in this Research Roundup, the authors report drastic changes already relatively early in the course of the war (January–February 2024). Specifically, they found that about 80 percent of the Palestinian businesses in the Old City were “shuttered or operating minimally.”3 And the war and its associated restrictions in mobility, including severance from access to jobs in the rest of the West Bank, is going to cost the Palestinian economy of East Jerusalem an estimated $19.6 million annually.4

Due to the economic shocks suffered even just up to the point of writing early in 2024, the authors assess that “even in the absence of widespread military confrontations, the Palestinian economy will not return to the pre-war state in the West Bank.”5

In “The Effects of Israeli Policies on Palestinians’ Basic Needs in the Occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem,” a working paper published by the Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) in Bonn, Germany, Marta Parigi and Hamid R. Oskorouchi use quantitative and statistical analysis to assess whether Israeli policies—in their view apartheid policies—systematically deprive Palestinians living in the occupied West Bank (including East Jerusalem) of their basic needs. According to the authors, “This article provides the first causal, quantitative evidence that the detrimental effects experienced by Palestinians are systematically inflicted by Israeli measures (not incidental consequences). The systematic nature of these practices—a fundamental attribute of an apartheid system—wields structured and institutionalized policies to discriminate against and suppress a specific population group.”6

The European Union published its “2023 Report on Israeli Settlements in the Occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem (January–December 2023).”7 The report, released on August 2, 2024, reveals that the number of settlement plans and expansions in 2023 was the highest since 2012. In East Jerusalem specifically, the report states that new settlements like Givat Hamatos (the first Jerusalem settlement to be built over the 1967 Green Line in more than 20 years) and Lower Aqueduct hinder geographical continuity between East Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank, threatening the two-state solution and negatively impacting Palestinian development opportunities. The report also notes a rise in settler violence, particularly in Area C of the occupied West Bank.

The Pew Research Center has released a report about a new survey by Laura Silver and Maria Smerkovich, entitled, “How Israeli Society Has Unified, and Divided, in Wartime” (June 20, 2024). The essay is based on the results of a survey of 1,001 Israeli adults, conducted via face-to-face interviews from March 3 to April 4, 2024.

The survey covers several areas, including views of key Israeli institutions and political leaders, settlements, the future relationship between Israelis and Palestinians, and violence.

Regarding the last point, the survey found that both Jews and Palestinians are concerned about the rising violence in the occupied West Bank (including East Jerusalem) in light of the war. However, Israeli Jews and Palestinian citizens differ sharply in their assessments, with Jews more likely to express concern over rising violence against Jews (70 percent vs. 43 percent), while Palestinians more likely to be concerned about violence targeting Palestinians (73 percent vs. 19 percent). There are also ideological differences, with left-leaning Israelis 43 points more likely than right-leaning Israelis to voice concern about violence against Palestinians—and 20 points less likely to voice concerns about violence against Jews.8

Peace Now, along with Combatants for Peace and Emek Shaveh, jointly issued an alert warning that the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage Site known as the Land of Olives and Vines—Cultural Landscape of Southern Jerusalem, Battir, is facing a full-on attack from ongoing and planned Israeli settlement activities. Located southwest of Jerusalem in the occupied West Bank in land designated as Area C, the World Heritage Site consists of 11 square kilometers spanning the area between the Palestinian villages of Husan, Battir, and al-Walaja and towns of Beit Jala and al-Khadir. The unique agricultural landscape has been cultivated and maintained by local communities for thousands of years using ancient farming practices such as terracing.

The report provides an overview of the developments of new settlements and expanded outposts at several locations within the World Heritage Site area, which “represent an extensive and severe threat to the Palestinian communities living in the area and their precious heritage.”9

“Welcome to Hell: The Israeli Prison System as a Network of Torture Camps” is a report released by B’Tselem—The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories on the abuse and inhumane treatment of Palestinians held in Israeli custody since October 7, 2023. For its research, B’Tselem collected testimonies from 55 Palestinians, including East Jerusalemites, who were detained during that time and released, almost all without trial. In the introduction, B’Tselem states, “Their testimonies indicate a systemic, institutional policy focused on the continual abuse and torture of all Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.”10

The report highlights the rushed transformation of more than a dozen Israeli prison facilities, military and civilian, into a network of de facto torture camps dedicated to the abuse of inmates as a matter of policy.

Across the 55 testimonies from different detention facilities, there were many consistencies. B’Tselem writes that “the abuse . . . consistently described . . . is so systemic, that there is no room to doubt an organized, declared policy of the Israeli prison authorities.”12

On July 22, 2024, UNICEF released a press release highlighting a sharp escalation in child fatalities in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, with 143 Palestinian children killed since October 2023.13 On average, one Palestinian child was killed every two days in this period. This marks a nearly 250 percent spike compared to the previous nine months, during which 41 Palestinian children were killed. Additionally, more than 440 Palestinian children have been injured by live ammunition.

According to UNICEF, the increasing tensions in the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) are also impacting the physical and mental well-being of thousands of children and families, who are now living in daily fear for their lives. Children report being scared to walk around their neighborhoods, or to travel to school.

A recently published edited volume, Lived Resistance against the War on Palestinian Children (edited by Heidi Morrison, University of Georgia Press, August 2024, 320 pp.), examines the concept of children’s “lived resistance,” which the book posits as an “embodied experience, from many innovative and important angles.” Here we summarize just a few of the contributions as space does not allow a full synopsis of the entire book.

In her chapter “The Violent Circulation of Affects and Necropenological Unchilding,” feminist scholar Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian focuses on children’s corpses systematically withheld by Israel and how grieving parents navigate such an agonizing situation. The chapter builds on her earlier work establishing the concept of “unchilding” in 2019, whereby Israel constructs Palestinian children as “dangerous and killable bodies needing to be caged and dismembered, physically and mentally,”14 thereby criminalizing their very existence and normalizing state violence against them to the extent that they are “excluded from childhood and humanity itself.”15

In “Guilty by Default: The Legal Process of Unchilding Palestinians,” attorney Shahrazad Odeh investigates the systematic “unchilding” of Palestinian children in Jerusalem through the Israeli legal system.16 The process is characterized, she writes, by three main pillars: labeling children as unworthy of rehabilitation, portraying them as public threats, and convicting them without fair due process.

Examining the years 2013 to 2018, a period marked by heightened political violence, Odeh analyzes the impact of Israeli legislation and legal practices on Palestinian youth. The chapter details how Israel’s legal system enforces “unchilding” by securitizing and prosecuting Palestinian children differently than Jewish children, using high conviction and incarceration rates to justify extensive state control and surveillance over Palestinian families. It contextualizes these practices within the broader framework of Israeli control and the precarious state-designated legal status of Palestinians in Jerusalem as “permanent residents,” highlighting their continuous struggle to maintain their rights and presence amid systemic oppression and displacement.

In “E-Fathering: Constructing Life in Spaces of Death,” Abeer Otman examines “e-fathering,” a way in which bereaved Palestinian fathers use social media to express their grief and stay connected with their deceased children.17 Otman explores the politics of resistance in sharing personal grief online, where social media, despite its role in repression, becomes a space for Palestinian fathers to assert their agency and mourn publicly, revealing layers of fatherhood suffering and resistance.

Through her analysis of social media posts, Otman reveals how the Israeli military occupation enforces “unchilding” and “unfathering,” which the author defines as “the dispossession of the father’s power, right, and license to protect and father his children.” Despite these challenges, bereaved fathers engage in “electronic fathering,” cautiously expressing love and care amid the criminalization and surveillance of Palestinian men. Their online activity provides a poignant example of how these fathers navigate their profound suffering and loss “as a form of liberation and agency” in a landscape wherein the usual societal supports and spaces for such expression are deliberately denied by the state, whether through ongoing violent war, withholding dead bodies, severe limitations on funerals for slain children, or other means.

Amneh Badran, professor of political science at Al-Quds University in Jerusalem, contributed “Children’s Political Activism in the East Jerusalem Village of Silwan, 2008–2015” to the volume.

The Women’s Centre for Legal Aid and Counseling (WCLAC) in Jerusalem published a study in Arabic titled “Marrying Off Children . . . Archaic Laws, Minor Amendments, and a Traditional Culture Encouraging It,” which explores the issue of early marriage for girls and its negative social, health, mental, and economic impacts.18 The study, published July 3, 2024, focuses on the years 2020 to 2023, following a legal amendment in Palestine that set the minimum marriage age at 18 but allowed exceptions in special cases with religious approval.

The study argues that the amendment reflects the unique needs of Palestinian society, countering the notion that it was influenced by international organizations. It notes that the change was driven by local civil society and women’s rights organizations, with significant support from the Palestinian sharia judiciary, aiming to better protect young girls.

“‘Handcuffed Parenthood’: Parents of Young Children at Risk from East Jerusalem Who Were Removed from Their Homes” by Mayis Eissa and Anat Zeira aims to better understand the experiences of Palestinian parents whose children are removed from their homes by Israeli authorities due to maltreatment, as well as their coping strategies with the removal.19 The study was conducted in East Jerusalem, a setting where there are few early childhood or social services for families, and relies on interviews with parents of young children removed from their homes by Israeli court orders.

Using thematic analysis that emphasizes sociocultural perceptions among minority groups, the study identified the dilemmas faced by parents after their child’s removal (e.g., reunifying with the mother versus maintaining a beneficial legal status) and the coping strategies they use (e.g., justifying the removal). The study finds that due to the complex political context in Jerusalem, Palestinian parents facing the removal of a child start off without any trust or faith in the welfare system and feel transparent, inferior, and helpless in the face of the system’s removal of their child from the home. The study also questions whether

The authors conclude that policies addressing child removal due to abuse or neglect must consider the influence of the ongoing political conflict on these families’ experiences.

Drawing on primary and secondary sources, WCLAC conducted a study of the impact of home demolitions in East Jerusalem on women and girls. The results were published in a report entitled “Dismantled Dreams: The Unceasing Demolitions in Jerusalem by the Israeli Occupation Forces and Their Impact on Women.” The study examined homes demolished under the Kaminitz Law in four neighborhoods—Batn al-Hawa (Silwan), Beit Hanina, Jabal Mukabbir, and al-‘Isawiyya—over an 18-month period spanning 2022 and the first six months of 2023. The demolitions were of various types: administrative, military, and punitive. The study also reviewed forced self-demolitions. It analyzed how these practices are illegal, interwoven with interviewees’ voices on the devastating impact of the experience on themselves and their families, including anecdotes underlining the deliberate almost sadistic brutality of the bureaucratic process as well as the actual execution of the demolition. The report concludes with a set of recommendations to the international community and stakeholders.

In “Working from the Backstage: A Longitudinal Analysis of the Save Sheikh Jarrah Campaign,” Federica Stagni explores the evolution of protests in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem, focusing on the shift in dynamics and the movement’s composition from a joint Israeli-Palestinian movement to a predominantly Palestinian one. To answer questions about how and why these shifts occurred, the research employs a longitudinal perspective, utilizing Protest Event Analysis (PEA) and Qualitative Social Network Analysis (SNA) to trace changes in protest networks from 2000 to 2021.21

The study introduces the concept of a “backstaging mechanism,” highlighting the ability of a section of a movement to strategically step aside to facilitate the movement achieving its goals. This mechanism is examined through a triangulation of data, combining PEA and SNA results with insights from 20 interviews with activists from diverse ethnonational groups.

The Diakonia International Humanitarian Law Centre recently released a report titled “Legality of Restrictions on the Freedoms of Expression, Assembly, and Association in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.” The report examines how, since declaring war on Gaza, Israeli authorities have further restricted the freedoms of expression, association, and peaceful assembly in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.22 This latest clampdown on civil and political rights in the occupied Palestinian Territories (oPT) occurs in an already constricted civic space, shaped by more than five decades of military occupation and an accumulation of restrictive measures imposed by consecutive Israeli governments.

The report analyzes the legality of these measures under the law of occupation and international human rights law, highlighting potential violations by Israel of its obligations as an occupying power and as a state party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).

On July 15, 2024, the Arab Center for the Advancement of Social Media—7amleh launched its Arabic Violence Indicator, an AI-powered linguistic model that automatically monitors the spread of hate speech and violence on social media platforms in the Arabic Language. The findings are then presented on the website in Arabic on the page “7or – the Palestinian Digital Rights Violations Observatory.”

This new tool follows the successful release of the Violence Indicator for Hebrew content in November 2023. The Arabic Violence Indicator detects violent content and hate speech on social media among Palestinians, analyzing factors like gender, political and religious backgrounds, and more. It helps identify harmful content, assesses its reach and engagement, and aids researchers, decision-makers, human rights defenders, and activists in understanding and addressing online threats and violence.