Access, Mobility, and Fragmentation
Closure and Access to Jerusalem
Jerusalem is known as an open, international, “city of peace.” For millions of Palestinians, however, it is a closed city, virtually unreachable, as unknown and unknowable as the sea. Here we explore closure, Israel’s system that controls movement based on identity and thereby profoundly alters the fabric of the city and its hinterland.
Featured in This Topic
Going to extremes to pray at one’s holy site
A visual overview of the multilayered points at which Israel blocks Muslims from accessing their holiest site, even during Ramadan
A counternarrative of a city in transition after a catastrophic division, revealing empowered agency and cosmopolitanism
The history of mobility and the barriers that reshaped it
Palestinian im/mobility at Qalandiya checkpoint should be understood within the colonial framework of power.
Anonymous testimonies expose the harsh impact of checkpoints on Palestinian women.
How hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are banned from ever entering Jerusalem
A daunting, labyrinthine maze of regulations and blockage points stands between holders of certain types of IDs and Jerusalem.
What is closure, and how does it block Palestinians with certain IDs from moving freely? We asked Yael Berda, who worked within and studied this little-understood bureaucracy.
A glimpse of the daily contortions that Palestinians endure to move about
A young man shares his lifetime of experience of dealing with Israel’s closure of Jerusalem and how it has impacted his entire life.
The closure of Jerusalem means severe hardships for those outside the city who seek care that is only available in it. Salma, a cancer patient, shares.
What’s it like to live behind a military checkpoint in your own city?
Palestinian journalists reporting in Jerusalem’s Old City risk attacks, arrest in unwritten press ban.
With each passing day, Jerusalem is getting harder to reach for Palestinians outside the city.
The Story in Numbers
34
Number of years since the first closure of the West Bank and Gaza in January 1991, and the introduction of the permit regime [1]
18
Checkpoints controlling access to Jerusalem [2]
26,000
Estimated number of Palestinians who pass through Qalandiya checkpoint, the major access point between Ramallah and Jerusalem, each day [3]
3
Number of checkpoints that all Palestinians with PA IDs are allowed to use to access Jerusalem [4]
15,000
Estimated number of Palestinians who pass through Checkpoint 300, the major checkpoint between Bethlehem and Jerusalem, each day [5]
4.6 million
Palestinians living within the occupied West Bank and Gaza who cannot enter Jerusalem without a permit [6]
100+
Types of permits required for Palestinians with Palestinian Authority IDs to move from place to place for every possible life circumstance [7]
0
Types of permits required for Jews with Israeli IDs to move from place to place [8]
500,000+
Palestinians banned permanently from Jerusalem for 1–99 years [9]
Notes
1. See Jerusalem: A Closed City.
2. See Checkpoints, Part 1: Severing Jerusalem.
3. Harrison Jacobs, “I Took the Excruciating 10-mile Journey through Israel’s Most Notorious Military Checkpoint That Adds Hours to the Daily Commute for 26,000 Palestinians,” Business Insider, August 7, 2018.
4. See Checkpoints, Part 1: Severing Jerusalem.
5. ActiveStills, “Checkpoints: Israel’s Military Checkpoints: ‘We Live a Life of Injustice,’” Al Jazeera, 2018.
6. See The Unreachable City.
7. See Jerusalem: A Closed City.
8. See Closure and the Dismemberment of Jerusalem.
9. See Banned from Entry.