“I am proud that the takiyya (soup kitchen) in the Old City did not close for a single day since Israel imposed a closure on the Old City at the beginning of the Israeli war on Iran,”1 said Bassam Abu Libdeh, the official in charge of the Khaski Sultan Takiyya in the Old City. He added that several employees were unable to reach the kitchen because they live outside the Old City.

“Despite this, we continued to provide meals to needy families living near us,” Abu Libdeh added. “For them, we are a lifeline in light of the deteriorating economic conditions of Jerusalem residents and the rising poverty rate in the city. We were unable to provide these meals to families from the neighborhoods surrounding the Old City.”

Abu Libdeh was referring to the tight restrictions that Israel imposed on Palestinians’ access to their shops, markets, and holy places in Jerusalem’s Old City from the start of Israel’s war on Iran on June 13, 2025. Israeli authorities closed all the gates into the Old City and would only allow Palestinians with an address inside the Old City on their ID cards to enter.

Israel also closed al-Aqsa Mosque and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre to worshippers, pilgrims, and even clergy. Only a few limited personnel were allowed to enter during the first nearly week of the war. The church only reopened on June 25, 2025, and al-Aqsa Mosque two days before that, on June 24.2

While ostensibly done for the safety of the public, Israel’s closure was enacted in a discriminatory way. Nir Hasson, a journalist who covers Jerusalem for the Hebrew daily Haaretz, confirmed to Jerusalem Story that Israeli Jewish markets like Mahaneh Yehuda were not closed, nor was the Jewish Quarter or the Western Wall.3

After nearly a week of closure, authorities allowed the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem to conduct mass in the Holy Sepulchre on June 19, 2025. According to a report by the church, only some clergy and a limited number of worshipers were allowed to attend.4 On Friday, June 20, authorities allowed al-Aqsa Mosque to open to only 450 worshipers,5 a tiny fraction of tens of thousands who usually attend Friday prayers.

Speaking to Jerusalem Story, Abu Libdeh explained that, because Jerusalem is experiencing an unprecedented siege, he was forced to “seek creative ideas for bringing food supplies into the kitchen from outside the Old City, after Israeli authorities refused to allow any supplies through Damascus Gate, the closest gate to the hospice.” He said that an employee took an old three-wheeled cart, famous in Jerusalem, and brought vegetables, chicken, and meat from Hebron Gate (an unguarded gate used by both Israeli Jews and Palestinians) to the kitchen. Some employees also carried these supplies on their backs and brought them into the kitchen through a different gate of the city.

Abu Libdeh expressed surprise at the near-hermetic closures. While Palestinian Jerusalem is under a strict lockdown, the situation looked completely different in the nearby Jewish Quarter, where Jews entered and exited the Old City without any restrictions or ID checks, and food supplies flowed freely to their religious schools. On Jaffa Street, just meters from the Old City, there were no restrictions whatsoever. “Believe me,” Abu Libdeh told Jerusalem Story, “We feel that what is happening is a punishment for us because we are Arabs and because we still live in Jerusalem.”

This sentiment is prevalent among Jerusalemites, especially Old City merchants, who are suffering from the most severe economic crisis they have ever experienced—worse, even, than during the initial period following October 7, 2023.

Amid the ongoing escalation, the gates of the Old City of Jerusalem have been closed, and Jerusalem's once vibrant markets have been transformed into silent alleys. Merchants who have persevered in the face of the occupation for decades are now forced to close their shops, while thousands are denied the ability to pray at their holy sites.

A number of merchants from the Old City reported that municipal inspectors arrived at their shops and demanded that they close immediately, without giving any reason. They warned them that if they did not, they would face heavy fines, forcing the shops to close.6

This was confirmed by a shop owner on al-Wad Street, who requested anonymity. He said he was tired of sitting at home and decided to open his shop there just for a change and to brighten up the dark street due to the closure of all the shops. Moments later, a number of Israeli officers arrived, accompanied by municipal employees, and ordered the closure. “I told them I wouldn't sell anything and wouldn’t receive anyone,” he recounted. “I just wanted to open my shop, and they forced me not to do so.”7

He explained further: “We have never witnessed such suffering, even during the coronavirus pandemic or the Gaza War. We see with our own eyes religious Jews and settlers roaming freely in the alleys of Jerusalem.”

Fakhri Mahmoud, a young man who owns a shop in Bab Khan al-Zeit, told Jerusalem Story that he has not been near the Old City for two weeks because the police prevent him from entering. For Mahmoud, the reason is to protect Jewish Israelis from Palestinians. “The Old City is essentially a shopping center,” he said, “and there are no shelters there. The people are afraid of us.”8

Following a series of complaints by Palestinian and Israeli NGOs, the police eventually allowed shoppers into the Old City but then placed virtually impossible conditions on the shopkeepers. Hasson explained that Israeli police ordered all shopkeepers to close, except those that sell food, although they were also not allowed to offer customers seating.9 A fine of NIS 5,000 would be imposed on anyone caught opening a shop or serving food to seated customers. However, Hasson noted that a “five-minute walk away on Jaffa Street, everything has been open as usual for several days, and restaurants have been serving food without interruption.”10

Israeli authorities’ increasingly discriminatory practices affect all aspects of the daily lives of Jerusalem’s Palestinians. According to a report by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) published in April 2024, Israeli racial discrimination against Jerusalemites has reached a significant level, especially during wartime. The report concluded that most Palestinian apartments and residential buildings in East Jerusalem lack fortified rooms, “safe rooms,” or built-in bomb shelters. As for public shelters, the city has neglected to build them. Apart from one public shelter in Shu’fat, which is temporarily out of service, and a handful of schools (lacking any safe rooms) opened to the public, there are no public shelters in the city’s Palestinian neighborhoods, leaving Palestinian Jerusalemites vulnerable to Iranian missile attacks.11

On October 11, 2023, ACRI and another Israeli NGO, Bimkom—Planners for Planning Rights, wrote to the mayor of Jerusalem demanding immediate action to provide protected spaces in the city’s Palestinian neighborhoods.12 This could include opening all educational institutions and public buildings with bomb shelters, as well as deploying mobile protection equipment, among other solutions. There has yet to be a response.

Again, on June 19, 2025, ACRI appealed to the mayor, the Minister of Defense, and the commander of the Home Front Command on behalf of the 150,000 Palestinians who reside in Jerusalem neighborhoods beyond the Separation Wall, “demanding that the[y] receive protective shelters” from rockets and missiles. With no existing protections to speak of in these neighborhoods, Palestinian lives are at risk during times of war, a discriminatory Israeli state policy that “cruelly violates residents’ rights to life and bodily integrity, as well as to health, dignity, and equality,”13 the authors stated.