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UNOCHA Factsheet: East Jerusalem
06 December 2011
December 2011: East Jerusalem - Key Humanitarian Concerns Factsheet
Since 1967, Israel has implemented measures and policies which have altered the status of East Jerusalem, contrary to international law. These measures affect the residency status of East Jerusalem Palestinians, their access to education and health services, and their ability to plan and develop their communities, significantly increasing their humanitarian vulnerability. Israeli measures have also increasingly separated East Jerusalem from the remainder of the occupied Palestinian territory.
FAST FACTS
- Around 270,000 Palestinians currently reside in East Jerusalem, in addition to 200,000 Israeli settlers who
reside in the settlements which have been constructed since 1967, contrary to the international law.
- 3.7 million Palestinians from the remainder of the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt) are prohibited from entering East Jerusalem without Israeli-issued permits, which are difficult to obtain.
- Access to East Jerusalem is controlled by a combination of physical and administrative obstacles. Palestinians who are able to obtain permits can only use four of the 16 checkpoints along the Barrier.
- This system of restrictions obstructs Palestinian access, including patients by ambulance, to the East
Jerusalem health facilities which provide specialized and emergency services, unavailable elsewhere in the oPt.
- Approximately 55,000 Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem are physically separated from the urban centre by the Barrier.
- While 35% of East Jerusalem's land has been confiscated for the development of Israeli settlements, only 13% of East Jerusalem is zoned for Palestinian construction.
- At least 32% of all Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem lack building permits, which are difficult to obtain,
potentially placing at least 86,500 residents at risk of displacement. Since 1967, the Israeli authorities have demolished some 2,000 houses in East Jerusalem.
- Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem lack a secure legal residency status. Around 14,000 Palestinians have had their Jerusalem residency revoked by the Israeli authorities since 1967.
- Because of settlement activity and eviction, several hundred Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem are at risk of forced displacement. Particularly affected are the Old City and Silwan, and 500 people in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood.
- 1,000 additional classrooms are required to accommodate Palestinian children in schools in East Jerusalem and many existing facilities are substandard or unsuitable.
- Israel's unilateral annexation of East
Jerusalem and the surrounding West Bank
hinterland contravenes international law. It
is not recognized by the international community
which considers East Jerusalem an integral part
of the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt), (see,
among others, Security Council resolutions 252, 267,
471, 476 and 478).
- Since1967, Israeli measures have altered
the status of East Jerusalem and affected
the residency status of Palestinians, their
access to basic services, and their ability
to plan and develop their communities.
Combined, these measures place pressure
on Palestinians and act as 'push factors',
which significantly increase their humanitarian
vulnerability. In the long term, failure to address
these factors risks undermining the Palestinian
presence in East Jerusalem.
- Israeli-imposed movement and access
restrictions impede Palestinians' access
to East Jerusalem health facilities, which
provide routine, specialised and emergency
health services unavailable elsewhere in the oPt.
Physical and bureaucratic obstacles also hamper
the ability of Palestinian medical staff and students
to access their workplaces in East Jerusalem, to
the detriment of patients and hospitals.
- Israeli measures are increasingly
cutting off East Jerusalem - the focus of
Palestinian political, commercial, religious
and cultural life, and a hub for medical and
educational services - from the rest of the
oPt. The Barrier is compounding the separation
of East Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank,
dividing Palestinian neighbourhoods and suburbs
from each other and from the urban centre, and
separating rural communities from their land in
the Jerusalem hinterland.
- Israeli settlement activity in East Jerusalem
is illegal and occurs at the expense of land
and resources for Palestinian construction
and development. Settlement expansion inside
and around Palestinian neighborhoods leaves
residents at risk of forced eviction, displacement
and dispossession.
Source: UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs - Fact Sheets
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