In 2018, Israel approved Government Decision 3790 designed to “reduce socioeconomic gaps and advance economic development in East Jerusalem,” including relaunching the land registration process, which was frozen when Israel occupied East Jerusalem in 1967. Known as settlement of land title (SOLT), these procedures are meant to register ownership of land plots—a common practice around the world.

Despite being heralded as bringing great benefit to East Jerusalem, SOLT has had the opposite effect on Palestinian residents. Israeli planning rights group Bimkom—Planning and Human Rights released a new fact sheet, “East Jerusalem in Numbers 2026,” on May 10, 2026, just ahead of “Jerusalem Day.” The fact sheet offers a graphic snapshot of East Jerusalem’s population, land status, and housing situation (planning, building, and demolitions), with a breakdown in all categories into Jewish versus Palestinian data.

To learn more about Bimkom’s findings, Jerusalem Story spoke with Sari Kronos, architect and director of Bimkom’s East Jerusalem department, on May 20, 2026. The conversation has been edited for clarity and length.

The overall population in Jerusalem in 2023 (the latest year for which data are available) was 980,700 of which 391,400 (40 percent) were Palestinians, largely concentrated in East Jerusalem.1

According to Bimkom’s data, since Israel unfroze the process in 2018 through 2025, SOLT has been initiated for 9,000 dunams (about 12 percent of all East Jerusalem land, which totals 72,000 dunams). Of those, it has been completed for 2,300 dunams out of the 49,000 that remain un-expropriated (23,000 dunams having already been expropriated for settlements).2 The majority of that land (82 percent) has been registered to the existing Israeli settlements and infrastructure and to Israeli state, municipal, and adjacent national bodies such as the Jewish National Fund (JNF), the Development Authority, and the Jerusalem Municipality. Nine percent of the land was registered to unknown/disputed owners, generally under the management of the General Custodian, 4 percent to Jewish owners—either private individuals or corporate, and 4 percent to churches. Only 1 percent was registered to Palestinians.3

That is to say, since SOLT was restarted in 2018, only 23 dunams out of 2,300 completed (and 9,000 initiated) have been registered to Palestinians.

It is important to note that SOLT is a final and irreversible process. Once land title has been granted, it is virtually impossible to change it (see The Settlement of Land Title (SOLT): “The Most Acute Threat Facing Palestinian Residents of Jerusalem Today”).

Together with SOLT, planning policies have become more restrictive in recent years resulting in a sharp decline in the number of plans approved for Palestinian housing. According to Bimkom’s fact sheet, from 2018 to 2022, the annual average of plans meeting threshold conditions stood at around 140 but have since dropped to around 40. While on unregistered and unregulated land, the average approval rate of Palestinian plans has fallen from around 100 in 2022 to 6 in 2025.4

To learn more about Bimkom’s latest findings, Jerusalem Story interviewed Sari Kronish, architect and director of Bimkom’s East Jerusalem department, on May 20, 2026. The conversation has been edited for clarity and length.

Jerusalem Story (JS): What are some of the major outcomes of the SOLT process since its renewal in 2018?

Sari Kronish (SK): The data that we’re now showing is basically confirming what we’ve been seeing and fearing, which is that the process is going on in a way that is not going to provide any assurance for Palestinian landowners. Only 1 percent of the area that’s already been completed under the land registration process has been registered to Palestinian owners. Most of the area that has already been registered has been registered to state bodies and arms and/or Jewish ownership and settlement enterprise-related companies.

Most of the area that has been completed [i.e., registered] so far is open areas where, in tandem, new settlements are being planned. Some of the area also has Palestinian homes, which are now threatened as a result. What we see in the area that is [undergoing SOLT] and hasn’t yet been completed is that it’s the reverse, so most of the area includes Palestinian homes, and so this is very alarming as to how the process will continue. [Palestinian homeowners are often not informed that the land under their homes is undergoing SOLT, so once it is registered to state bodies or settlement-related entities, the homes on it can also be seized and it is too late for the homeowners to do anything.—Ed.]

JS: Can you elaborate on which Palestinian neighborhoods are under the greatest threat?

SK: There are two threats: There is the threat of settlement construction, and there is the threat of actual land grabs underneath existing homes, which I would say is even more alarming, because it can lead to home demolitions and/or evacuations. There are about eight new settlements being planned on land that has been completed under SOLT, so that is one aspect. The other is where SOLT is being completed where Palestinians actually live in Palestinian neighborhoods, and for the most part, this [land] is not being registered in their names—as I said, only one percent was registered to Palestinian owners. So land is being registered to other bodies—state bodies and settler-enterprise-related bodies—also where Palestinians live. This has already happened in two places —in Umm Tuba and in Umm Haroun [in the Palestinian neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah]. In Umm Tuba, the land has been registered to the JNF, and in Umm Haroun, to private Jewish ownership from before 1948 [and the municipality]. It is important to mention that Palestinians are not being given the same possibility of reclaiming their land that was lost.

And when we look at the places where SOLT is now ongoing, not yet completed, we see many more of these [types of] areas, so that’s alarming, such as in Silwan and in Beit Hanina, and in other places.

JS: As you mentioned, only 1 percent of the land has been registered to Palestinians. So why has this happened, especially since the renewal of SOLT was promoted by the Israeli government as being beneficial to East Jerusalem and Palestinians?

SK: In general, land registration processes should and can be important and crucial for development, especially in urban areas. The problem is that the process has to be transparent and fair, and the legal structures and the other laws that are in place and required as part of the SOLT process basically make it impossible for the process to be fair in the context of Jerusalem and the [Israeli] occupation. For example, the Absentees’ Property Law has to be frozen in East Jerusalem so that the process can actually achieve the stated goal of being beneficial for Palestinians [see How Israel Applies the Absentees’ Property Law to Confiscate Palestinian Property in Jerusalem]. When we realized that that was not going to happen, and as the data started coming in, the only rational way to think about it is that the process cannot be done in this way, when Absentee Property laws are, on the one hand, being forced on Palestinians, while in a completely discriminatory fashion, Jews are being allowed to reclaim their land from before 1948 under the same law.

JS: According to Bimkom’s findings, only about 640 housing units were approved in 2025 for Palestinians in Jerusalem, compared to nearly 9,000 in the rest of the city. Why was 2025 such a low point in approval of housing for Palestinians compared to previous years?

SK: Planning processes are long term, and so it can take some years to see the trends in the data. What we’re showing is that 2025 is a culmination of a process that has been taking place over years: the numbers are dropping, the discrimination is increasing and intensifying, the planning institutions have been instructed to collaborate with SOLT; it is virtually impossible to receive building permits—basically we’re seeing a freeze in planning and building for Palestinians.

In parallel to this freeze, we’re also seeing an exponential growth for settlement construction and Jewish Israeli presence in the city versus the erasure of Palestinian presence in the city.

JS: According to the data, since 2022, construction of Israeli settlements and housing has spiked in recent years while the construction of Palestinian housing has hovered around 1,000 units or fewer in the last decade and a half. What is causing this discrepancy?

SK: So there was this hovering, and then this drop. Because what is happening is that there is discrimination constantly, and then in recent years, it has been getting worse. So long term, you are not seeing the ability to keep up the average. The average was low all along, but because the situation got so much worse in recent years, the average is dropping, as it is difficult to maintain low-scale discrimination while constantly worsening it.

JS: Demolitions of Palestinian buildings are steadily increasing in recent years compared to a decade ago. Why is that? And why are self-demolitions consistently increasing?

SK: Unfortunately, demolitions are on the rise in recent years. This is the most painful outcome of the whole story. The chain of discriminatory and restrictive housing policies ends with demolition orders and actual demolitions, and this destroys families and lives.

There are a number of reasons why people make the horrible decision to demolish their own home. For one, when the state comes and demolishes homes, people get very large fines. And when they do it themselves, it costs them less. Also, when the state comes, it’s very violent. Usually [Israeli forces] demolish more than what they’ve come to demolish. It’s very traumatic for the family. When people opt to do it themselves, they can also mitigate that.

JS: Given the planning and SOLT data we’ve seen in the last seven years, what can we expect to see happen for 2026?

SK: The present is bad enough, so predicting the future is grim. Unless some decisions are made to halt the downhill slide we are experiencing, it will only continue to worsen.

JS: Thank you for speaking with us today.

View the full Bimkom fact sheet here.