Foundations
Who Are the Palestinians of Jerusalem?
Officially, Palestinian Jerusalemites comprise nearly half of the population of Jerusalem within the Israeli-defined municipal boundaries, but unofficially their number is much higher. Additionally, hundreds of thousands of Palestinian Jerusalemites live outside the city and its environs—most not by choice. This topic explores their stories.
Featured in This Topic
A visual journey tracing Hind al-Husseini’s life and legacy in Jerusalem
Finding blessing and abundance through community during war
Mahmoud Jiddah struggled for years to define his identity. Eventually, he found the answers.
A Greek Orthodox Jerusalemite recounts his life in the Old City and his involvement with his community. A book review.
Palestinians of Jerusalem—A Photo Essay
A beloved community leader who helped to internationalize the cause of Palestinians of African descent
Reality, identity, and daily pressures facing Afro-Palestinians in Jerusalem’s Old City
A Palestinian in exile remembers Jerusalem’s Old City—the sights and sounds, the tight-knit community—during his last days with his formidable grandfather, the Mukhtar.
The al-Jebrini family has been running the famous sesame press in Jerusalem’s Old City for over 160 years.
A leader, activist, and diplomat affectionately referred to by his community as the Lion of Jerusalem
A leader in the Great Palestinian Revolt who was killed defending his city of Jerusalem on the eve of the Nakba
Musa Kazim al-Husseini, the “undisputed leader of the Palestinian Arabs,” held important political positions in Jerusalem until his death at age 81
A home-based artist takes refuge in her work.
Reviving the straw art of her grandparents’ generation
The Khalidi Library, founded and maintained by the Khalidis, a Jerusalemite family with centuries of history in the city, is a local treasure.
A prominent Ottoman politician who served as mayor of Jerusalem and Jerusalem representative and was a prolific writer, talented linguist, and scholar
The Story in Numbers
366,800
Palestinian population of Jerusalem, within the Israeli unilaterally-declared municipal boundaries (2020) [1]
38.56
Percentage of Palestinians in the total Jerusalem population (East and West) (2020) [2]
96
Percentage of Muslims in the Palestinian population of Jerusalem (2020) [3]
4
Percentage of Christians in the Palestinian population of Jerusalem (2020) [4]
19
Percentage that Palestinian residents within the Israeli municipal boundaries of Jerusalem comprise of Israel’s total Palestinian population (citizens and permanent residents) (2020) [5]
5
Average number of persons per household among Palestinian Jerusalemites (compared with 3.3 for Jewish households) (2020) [6]
95.5
Literacy rate among Palestinians in Jerusalem (2021) [7]
86
Percentage of Palestinian children living within the Israeli municipal boundaries who live below the Israeli poverty level (versus 33 percent of Jewish children) [8]
Notes
1. Omer Yaniv, Netta Haddad, and Yair Assaf-Shapira, Jerusalem Facts and Trends 2022 (Jerusalem: Jerusalem Institute for Policy Research, 2022), 20. Reflects the number of Palestinians entered in the Israeli Population Registry (including both citizens and permanent residents). Unregistered persons and persons with Palestinian Authority IDs living in Jerusalem may number in the thousands or tens of thousands, but are not counted in this source.
2. Omer Yaniv et al., Jerusalem Facts, 20. Lists the Jerusalem population of Christian Palestinians as 12,900 and Muslim Palestinians as 353,800, but added together, these only total 366,700 not 366,800, the same source’s stated total of Palestinians in the city. Therefore, approximately 100 people are missing from these religious categories without explanation.
3. Omer Yaniv et al., Jerusalem Facts, 20. See note 2.
4. Omer Yaniv et al., Jerusalem Facts, 20. See note 2.
5. Omer Yaniv et al., Jerusalem Facts, 20. This calculation is made by an Israeli institute based on the assumption that both West and occupied East Jerusalem are part of Israel. It is offered as a point of insight, without any political inference or connotation.
6. Omer Yaniv et al., Jerusalem Facts, 98.
7. Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, “Jerusalem Statistical Yearbook—2021” [in Arabic] (June 2022) 77.
8. Association for Civil Rights in Israel, “East Jerusalem—Facts and Figures 2021.”