Community Capacity
Institutional Capacity
For decades, Israel has worked systematically to undermine and destroy any collective capacity Palestinians of Jerusalem have striven to develop to serve their own community’s self-determined needs and articulate its concerns and best interests through institution building. Here, we attempt to reconstruct this record gradually and also to show what the community does to maintain some agency and meet its collective needs despite the juggernaut of state power aimed squarely against it.
Featured in This Topic
Palestinians in the Old City are forced to do without Israeli systems and institutions, so they rely on each other to survive.
Israel steps up efforts to force Palestinian organizations out of Jerusalem.
New draconian laws are arriving.
How a private university in the heart of Jerusalem defies all odds to preserve Palestinian presence and institutional autonomy in the city
She saw a need—inadequate emergency services for Palestinians—and in addressing it found her mission in life.
The recent war with Iran exposed the city’s disregard for Palestinian residents’ lives in yet another way.
The story of the Orient House reflects the bleak reality of Palestinian political sovereignty in Jerusalem.
Palestinian photographer Muath al-Khatib visits a community kitchen that warms his heart as part of our series on Jerusalemites’ favorite places in the city.
An activist who lived through the Nakba and founded and directed the Infant Welfare Center, the first medical center in the Old City of Jerusalem
The Story in Numbers
77
Number of years that Israel has maintained a continuous state of emergency, giving the state draconian powers to infringe on a whole gamut of human rights, including outlawing organizations [1]
88
Number of Palestinian institutions permanently closed by Israel since it occupied East Jerusalem in 1967 [2]
52
Estimated number of Jerusalemite institutions closed by Israel between 2000 and 2023, many working in development, youth and social affairs, and sports [3]
24
Number of years since Israel closed the Orient House was closed [4]
11
Number of institutions closed by Israel in a single day on August 10, 2001 [5]
30
Number of bank accounts linked to Palestinian civil society organizations that were allegedly closed by banks in Europe and the United States in the face of an Israeli-led international campaign aimed at undermining Palestinian civil society [6]
40
Number of bank accounts linked to Palestinian civil society organizations that were allegedly closed by banks in Europe and the United States in the face of an Israeli-led international campaign aimed at undermining Palestinian civil society [6]
36
Percentage of Palestinian civil society organizations working in Jerusalem who reported in a 2019 survey that they had received Israeli orders prohibiting various activities or all work in East Jerusalem [8]
12
Number of years by which the Arab Chamber of Commerce and Industry—forced by Israel to move out of the Israeli municipal boundaries of Jerusalem—preceded the State of Israel [9]
80+
Number of military orders issued by Israel between 2010 and 2020, to shut down events in East Jerusalem, including cultural, educational, and employment activities, as well as press conferences [10]
12
Number of Palestinians arrested by Israel In March 2020 for disinfecting mosques, churches, and other institutions in the Old City of Jerusalem to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, claiming that this work was organized by the Palestinian National Authority, which is banned under Israeli law from operating inside municipal Jerusalem [11]
170
Number of Palestinian institutions estimated to remain open in East Jerusalem as of 2022 [12]
48
Percentage of Palestinian civil society organizations working in Jerusalem who reported in a 2019 survey that they have had one or more members (staff and board) prevented from coming to Jerusalem to work due to Israel’s military closure on Palestinians who hold PA ID cards [13]
Notes
[1] Ingrid Jaradat, Attacks on Palestinian Civil Society Organizations in Occupied East Jerusalem: A Matter of Illegal Annexation and of Repression of the Right to Self-determination (Ramallah: Palestinian NGO Network, 2018), 15.
[2] Jerusalem Center for Human Rights, Squeezed Out: The Struggles of Palestinian Civil Society Organizations in East Jerusalem (2023); Ali Abu Hilal, “The Policy of Closing Institutions in Jerusalem Continues in Order to Judaize the City and Erase Its Arab identity” [in Arabic], Modern Discussions, May 18, 2020.
[3] Nazmi Jubeh, “Jerusalem: Five Decades of Subjection and Marginalization,” Jerusalem Quarterly 62 (Spring 2015).
[4] “About the Orient House,” Orient House, accessed September 5, 2025.
[5] Jerusalem Story team research; Jaradat, Attacks on Palestinian Civil Society.
[6], Rania Muhareb, Elizabeth Rghebi, Susan Power, and Pearce Clancy, Persecution of Palestinian Civil Society: Epistemic Violence, Silencing, and the Apartheid Framework (Washington: Institute for Palestine Studies, 2022), 24–25.
[7] Jaradat, Attacks on Palestinian Civil Society, 8.
[8] Jaradat, Attacks on Palestinian Civil Society, 8.
[9] The Chamber of Industry and Commerce was established in 1936 and was shut down by Israel in 2001, forcing it out to Dahiyat al-Barid, outside the Israeli municipal boundaries of Jerusalem. See “History,” The Arab Chamber of Commerce and Industry, January 22, 2018.
[10] Abu Hilal, “Closing Institutions in Jerusalem.”
[11] Palestine Liberation Organization, “The Closure of Palestinian Events in Occupied Jerusalem Following the Trump Administration’s Recognition of Jerusalem as the Capital of Israel” [in Arabic], last accessed September 4, 2025.
[12] Jerusalem Center for Human Rights, Squeezed Out.
[13] Jaradat, Attacks on Palestinian Civil Society, 31.