The City Advances Plan to Confiscate Palestinian Land between al-‘Isawiyya and al-Tur for National Park

On March 5, 2024, the Jerusalem Municipality’s District Planning Committee held a hearing on objections filed against the Mount Scopus Slopes National Park plan (TPS 1195114). The plan seeks to designate the land between the Palestinian neighborhoods of al-‘Isawiyya and al-Tur in occupied East Jerusalem as a national park,1 which means Palestinians in these neighborhoods would be barred from any further construction in the area.

According to Bimkom, an Israeli planning rights organization and one of the main parties filing an objection to the plan, the planning committee could take weeks to release its decision on whether to approve or reject the plan based on these objections.

“Most of the point of these plans is to create facts on the ground and make sure the land isn’t built on by landowners for housing purposes. So, it’s more of a land grab,” Sari Kronish, an architect at Bimkom, explained.2

The March hearing considered the second round of objections to the plan, which were filed during wartime in November 2023. “I find it important to highlight that these things don’t get stopped during wartime, but get accelerated and pushed forward,” Kronish added.

Israel has long weaponized so-called green space as a tool for displacement. Often, the Israel Nature and Parks Authority (INPA) declares open areas as national parks or reserves citing conservation purposes, whereas the real reason is to solidify Israeli claims to the land and prevent Palestinian building.

“Both of these neighborhoods were trying to promote more adequate planning for their neighborhoods. And in response, rather than helping them promote adequate planning, the authorities said, ‘We’re actually working on a national park, so you can’t plan here,’” Kronish said.

The residents were advancing their zoning plans as part of the Jerusalem 2000 outline plan for the city, which has yet to be approved. Rights organizations assert6 that Israeli planning authorities use the unauthorized Jerusalem 2000 plan as a way to dictate policy when it comes to building procedures—often to the detriment of Palestinian neighborhoods.

While the Mount Scopus Slopes National Park plan was halted in 2014 to address the development needs of the nearby neighborhoods, it resurfaced in 2022 with amended borders. The Jerusalem District Planning Committee cited the recently approved outline plan for al-‘Isawiyya and the proposed outline plan for al-Tur as meeting the communities’ needs.

Yet the new lines drawn still don’t solve major developmental problems for Palestinians in these neighborhoods, including the difficulty of receiving building permits, proving ownership, and reducing the effects of decades-long urban planning discrimination.

“In al-‘Isawiyya, the situation is complicated for us,” Issawi said. “To prove ownership, we have to get a certificate from Beit El, from the security commander at the Civil Administration in the West Bank, because there is no tabu in al-‘Isawiyya.” As with building permits, Palestinians often are not granted these certificates, Issawi explained.

“From a planning point of view, these neighborhoods are slums,” Kronish explained. “You can’t do slum improvement without allowing them to grow.”

The proposed outline plan also prevents developing an access road for al-Tur; slates about 10 structures (including homes) for demolition; and calls for expropriating the designated national park area. Though legal in Israeli law, this is not required nor normally done for national parks.7

“Residents of both neighborhoods want open space, but certainly not a national park that’s the size of the neighborhood and clearly intended to limit the growth of the neighborhood,” Kronish asserted. “This means less housing units for Palestinians, and it’s all part of the demographic play in Jerusalem.”

The expropriation directive was of particular concern during the recent objection hearing, Kronish noted. “With a lot of the objections, the motivation is to make sure that the expropriation at least doesn’t take place,” Kronish said. “We are pretty sure the district planning committee is not going to shelve the plan now, but these are the types of demands that they can accept.”

Neither the INPA nor the Jerusalem Municipality responded to Jerusalem Story’s inquiries on the revised plan’s borders.

Issawi said the current outline plan only allocates 950 dunams for al-‘Isawiyya, which cannot accommodate the neighborhood’s approximately 22,000 residents.8 Originally, the municipality’s proposed plan in the 1980s allocated 666 dunams for al-‘Isawiyya’s then 8,000 residents. The population has nearly tripled since, but the area earmarked for the neighborhood has not.

The silhouettes of former homes are regular fixtures throughout the crowded streets of al-‘Isawiyya. According to Issawi, 12 structures have been demolished in the last two years—with the majority of buildings razed because they were built outside the borders of the current outline plan. Some of these buildings have been demolished multiple times.

“The people here, they have no choice. They have to build and to live. There is no place,” Issawi said.

Stuck between the Israeli settlement of French Hill, Israel’s Hadassah Hospital, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Issawi said there’s no room to expand. The road leading to the Israeli settlement of Ma‘ale Adumim in the West Bank also bisects the neighborhood.

“In al-‘Isawiyya, we are like an island between Jewish settlements and projects,” Issawi said. “We asked them to give us only the lands in between these projects, but we didn’t succeed.”