Jerusalem Pulse: Recent Research Roundup

In a news bulletin released in November 2024, Peace Now reported that the Israel Land Authority published a tender for the construction of a new settlement enclave inside of the Palestinian East Jerusalem neighborhood of Beit Safafa.1 The tender (No. 367/2024) seeks bids from developers to purchase 11 dunams of land in order to plan and build a residential neighborhood with around 200 settlement units, though that number is not a cap. The tender suggests that the land might be partially under private ownership, and partially under the ownership of the Israeli Development Authority.

Peace Now released “2023 Report on Israeli Settlements in the Occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem (January–December 2023)” on August 2, 2024. The report highlights the struggle of Silwan amid a sharp rise in demolitions and displacement targeting its Palestinian residents.2 The trend has escalated since the onset of the Gaza genocide on October 7, 2023, and appears to have intensified following Trump’s election in 2024. The report examines Israeli development plans—both municipal and governmental—that prioritize tourism and settler interests in the area, while disregarding the needs and the very existence of Palestinian residents. These actions, Peace Now warns, could have “long-term implications for the future of Jerusalem as the capital of both Israel and Palestine.”3

The Arab Center for the Advancement of Social Media (7amleh) released a report titled “Erased and Suppressed: Palestinian Testimonies of Meta’s Censorship”4 on December 18, 2024. Featuring direct testimonies from Palestinian influencers, journalists, and media outlets who have experienced Meta’s discriminatory practices, the report aims to expose the platform’s efforts to silence Palestinian content and suppress the Palestinian narrative, particularly amid the ongoing genocide in Gaza.

According to 7amleh, the evidence presented in the report reveals that

Haaretz recently reported that the Union of Journalists in Israel is accusing Israeli police of restricting journalists’ activity in East Jerusalem by barring them away from sites they want to cover and summoning them for interrogation illegally.6 The union detailed its allegations in a letter sent on February 11, 2025, to the attorney general, the police commissioner, and the police’s legal advisor.

The letter read that in recent days and weeks, a number of incidents have occurred in which police officers from the Jerusalem Police’s David Precinct (which covers the Old City) have interfered with journalists in the course of their work, and journalists have been summoned for interrogation over their journalistic work without the required approval of the head of the police’s investigations department, which violates police regulations.

The Arab Center for the Advancement of Social Media (7amleh) released a report entitled “Intensification of Surveillance in East Jerusalem since October 2023” on December 10, 2024. This report examines the intensification of Israeli digital surveillance in East Jerusalem since Israel declared war on Gaza on October 7, 2023, and its impact on the civil and political rights of Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem.7 The authors conducted 15 face-to-face interviews with Jerusalemite Palestinians between July and August 2024 and an online survey of 502 Palestinian Jerusalemites between September and October 2024. Their findings indicate that Israeli surveillance and digital control policies have reached unprecedented levels over the year since the war began.

These measures have included mass arrests based on digital activities, arbitrary dismissals from workplaces and educational institutions, and an increased reliance on advanced technologies such as facial recognition systems, drones, and spyware. The study also examines how these policies affect fundamental rights, including privacy, freedom of movement, and freedom of expression.

“Shaping Surveillance Futures: Palestinian Responses to Israeli Surveillance Technologies,” by Maya Avis, was published in the edited volume States of Surveillance (Routledge, 2024).8 The chapter examines the limits of dominant surveillance paradigms that equate technological surveillance with security, framing this as “security as technological domination.”

The author assesses how AI and machine learning-based surveillance technologies are perceived by their developers, users, and the subjects they target, drawing on ethnographic research in Palestine/Israel (2021–23). The analysis explores these technologies’ dual function: bolstering Israel’s global security-tech market presence and reinforcing control over Palestinians. Palestinian responses—ranging from acceptance to sabotage—underscore the critical role of resistance in understanding technological securitization, challenging its inevitability.

The volume is open access; the full text of the chapter is available at this link.

Another contribution on this topic comes from Sophia Goodfriend, publishing in the Journal of Palestine Studies in the fall of 2024 (vol. 53, no. 3). In her article “Algorithmic Dissent: Militarized Platforms and Palestinian Political Imagination in Jerusalem,” Goodfriend, a research fellow at the University of Cambridge who specializes in the impact of artificial intelligence on war, provides an ethnographic account of how young Palestinian Jerusalemites made powerful use of digital platforms during the turbulent summer and fall of 2021, despite intensive Israeli surveillance and censorship, speaking out on their own terms in defense of their city.

The Arab Center for the Advancement of Social Media (7amleh) released a report titled “Digital Safety of Palestinian Children in East Jerusalem: Between Violations and Digital Agency”9 on January 22, 2025. The report reveals the pressing challenges and digital violations faced by Palestinian children in East Jerusalem in the digital space.

The report highlights the broad risks children face in the digital space and examines their level of awareness of these risks and their knowledge of digital protection tools. Additionally, the report studies the role of Israeli authorities, peers, families, schools, and civil society organizations in undermining or promoting children’s digital rights.

For an in-depth review, see “Childhood in the Digital Age: The Struggle for Agency and Safety in Occupied East Jerusalem.”

In its regular “Settlement & Annexation Report” dated November 22, 2024, the Foundation for Middle East Peace (FMEP) reported that newly appointed Defense Minister Israel Katz announced the end of the authority to hold violent settlers in administrative detention.10 Katz said that he directed the Shin Bet to stop the use of administration detention against Israeli settlers, an authority that allows Israel to hold individuals in custody with no charges for up to six months, renewable indefinitely. Katz ordered Shin Bet to “put alternative tools in place.”

This stands in stark contrast to the systematic use of administrative detention against Palestinians, which, as the report mentions, is “a key feature of Israel’s system of apartheid” (see Surveillance and Detention).11

“The U.S. Recognition of Jerusalem as a Capital of Israel and the Movement of Its Embassy to Jerusalem: The Question of Jerusalem and Beyond,” by Hadeel S. Abu Hussein, a lawyer who is also a professor of law at Utrecht University, examines the legal impact of the United States’ recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital city and the movement of its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. The chapter was published in The Wretched of the Global South: Critical Approaches to International Human Rights Law, edited by Thamil Venthan Ananthavinayagan and Amritha Viswanath Shenoy (Palgrave Macmillan, 2024).

“Agency, Life Satisfaction, Hope, Potentially Traumatic Events, Trauma Symptoms, and Psychological Signs: A Two Waves Study with a Sample of Palestinian Children Living in Different Geographical Areas,” by Guido Veronese et al., investigates the psychological well-being of Palestinian children living in different geographical areas. Published in the journal Children and Youth Services Review (vol. 168, January 2025), it examines how living in a context shaped by systemic and structural violence due to the Israeli colonial occupation affect factors like agency, life satisfaction, and hope.12 The study sample comprised 1,150 participants, with 383 children from each of three geographical areas (East Jerusalem, the rest of the West Bank, and Gaza). An 88 percent response rate yielded a study sample of 965 children. Through a two-wave analysis, the study highlights resilience and challenges faced by children in the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and the Gaza Strip, offering insights into mental health and coping mechanisms. The authors conclude: “Our study underscores the profound impact of conflict on various dimensions of children’s well-being. The findings suggest that while some aspects of life satisfaction may remain stable due to cultural and social factors, other areas such as agency and trauma symptoms are significantly affected. These results highlight the need for comprehensive and contextually sensitive interventions that address both the immediate and long-term psychological needs of children in conflict zones.”13

A recent edited volume, A Transdisciplinary Study of Global Mobilities: Identities on the Move (Palgrave Macmillan, 2024), “highlights current complexities of identity formation in a global scene that is moving away from homogenous nations by presenting a multi-layered and multi-spatial notion of belonging.”14 Chapter 10, “The Afro Palestinians of Jerusalem and the Palestinian Nation,” by historian Moritz A. Mihatsch, examines the Afro-Palestinian community in Jerusalem and their connection to the broader Palestinian nation.15 It addresses the intersection of migration, race, and religious identity within competing national narratives, posing key questions: How do Afro-Palestinians perceive themselves, and how are they integrated into Palestinian society? The chapter argues that Renan’s concept of collective suffering explains why Afro-Palestinians identify as Palestinians and try to transcend their diaspora status. Their active role in the national struggle has helped to partially overcome stigmatization and gain wider societal recognition.

“Assessment and Cultural Sensitivity regarding International Graffiti on the Separation Wall in Palestine” is the title of a chapter that explores ethical issues regarding international graffiti-making on the Separation Wall in the Routledge Handbook of Arts and Global Development, edited by Vicki-Ann Ware et al. (Routledge, 2024).16 In the chapter, authors Khitam Edelbi and Chelsea L. Waybright argue that while graffiti tourism benefits the Palestinian economy, it simultaneously fuels conflict consumerism and undermines Palestinian artwork, which is used as a resistance tool against Israeli occupation. Though often intended to show solidarity, international graffiti frequently distorts the Palestinian narrative, prompting local artists to create counter graffiti. The chapter emphasizes the need for cultural sensitivity and local inclusion in these projects, suggesting that collaborative graffiti can foster solidarity and drive international social and political action.

“Jerusalem,” a chapter by Michael Dumper in the recently published Routledge Handbook on Palestine, edited by Michael Dumper and Amneh Badran (Routledge, 2024), “focuses on drawing out the impact of the city’s geopolitical location and its religious function on the governance and development of the city”17 over three historical periods: (a) the late Ottoman period, (b) the Colonial British Mandate period and the Partition period, and (c) the post-1967 period up to the present day, concluding with a look into the future.

Other chapters in this volume also have bearing on Jerusalem, such as, for example, the seven historical chapters, the six other chapters on society, geography, economy, and demography, the six chapters on Palestinian culture, and some of the chapters on contemporary politics. A table of contents for the volume can be found here.

In “The Sweet Smell of Holy Sewage: Urban Planning and the Remaking of the Public Sphere in Ottoman Palestine,” published as part of the history section of the abovementioned Routledge Handbook on Palestine,18 Palestinian sociologist Salim Tamari examines the urban transformations of three cities in late Ottoman Palestine within the context of European capitulations, indigenous reform, and war. Tamari explores the concept of “triadic modernity,” referring to the regional network that connected three urban centers: Jaffa, the port city; Jerusalem, the provincial capital; and Beersheba, the new frontier garrison town. The chapter focuses on “the emergence of a new public sphere in these cities from an earlier communitarian fabric.”19