Jerusalem’s Old City Reopens, but Residents Worry It May Not Be for Long

Israel has finally decided to reopen Jerusalem’s Old City and allow is shops to return to business after having ordered them closed for more than 40 days on the pretext of a state of emergency due to the US–Israel war on Iran.

Shop owners and Jerusalemites, however, are apprehensive about the possibility of the Iran War resuming and Israeli officials closing the city again. Abu Misbah, a shop owner in Souk al-‘Attarin (spice market), revealed that he is still hesitant to stock products for fear that the war will return and his shop will close. “Everything in Jerusalem is unstable, and everything is liable to explode at any moment, so it is very difficult for me to do any business. I must wait a little longer,”1 he said.

For Abu Misbah and many other merchants, waiting means heavy losses; if it weren't for his sons lending him money, he couldn’t have reopened his shop. Despite the difficult circumstances, he said a phrase that many Jerusalem residents frequently use: “Thank God for everything, this is our life in Jerusalem.”

Ziad Hammouri, head of the Jerusalem Center for Social and Economic Rights, told Jerusalem Story: “This closure was unfair and harsh on all [Palestinian] Jerusalemites, especially the residents of the Old City, who were left in complete isolation. Merchants also suffered huge losses that will be difficult to compensate, and this will take many months.”2 He added, “We are talking about a real economic catastrophe that the Old City is experiencing without any support for these merchants.”

As soon as Asaad Musa, 34, a resident of Jerusalem’s Beit Hanina neighborhood, heard that the Old City opened, he rushed to take his three children to visit, which he described as a historic moment. “I want to explain to my children on the ground what is happening in Jerusalem; I want what they see to be engraved in their memory so that they do not forget what Jerusalem and its people are suffering because of the occupation,”3 he said.

Asaad shared that he did not need to persuade his children to take them to pray at al-Aqsa Mosque in the Old City, because his children were eager to go after the prolonged closure. They had been waiting to visit al-Aqsa Mosque, closed for over 40 days, since the Eid al-Fitr holiday. “It was a beautiful feeling to see entire families with their children, arriving at the mosque on foot from the city’s villages and towns, because there weren’t enough parking spaces for their vehicles,” he added.

The preacher at al-Aqsa Mosque, Sheikh Muhammad Salim, was also very pleased about the return of worshippers and visitors to the mosque In his Friday sermon on April 10, 2026, attended and heard by thousands of Muslims, he said:

Worshippers coming to al-Aqsa Mosque, however, noticed a large deployment of Israeli police and intelligence personnel inside the mosque and among the worshippers, which is a blatant violation of the sanctity of the place, especially since, according to the agreed-upon rules, the police should be outside the boundaries of al-Aqsa Mosque and not inside it. This is considered another change to the Status Quo, which is fast eroding due to the intensified Israeli measures in and around al-Haram al-Sharif.

According to Hammouri, the unprecedentedly long closure of the site is a test being conducted by Israel.

Once the shops opened again, Sheikh Muhammad called on worshippers to shop in the Old City markets in solidarity with its merchants and in support of Jerusalem and its people. The alleys and streets of the Old City were filled with worshippers keen to buy cakes, sweets, candies, and everything they could purchase from Jerusalem. One of the grocery stores on al-Wad Street continued to offer small bottles of water as a gift to all worshippers for free, as it had been doing throughout the year. The store is one of more than 1,350 shops that were forced to close due to the war, which has completely paralyzed commercial, economic, and even social activity within the ancient walls of Jerusalem. This exacerbates the poverty that is plaguing the Old City. According to Hammouri, 80 percent of Jerusalemites live below the risk of poverty, and 78 percent find it difficult to cover their families’ monthly expenses, while the unemployment rate among young Jerusalemites is about 32 percent. These figures will rise as an immediate result of the closure, which has mostly hit the commercial and tourism sectors in Jerusalem.

Just meters away from al-Aqsa Mosque lies the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, a place of spiritual connection that is immensely unique to Jerusalem. The situation at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is no better than that at al-Aqsa Mosque. Despite its reopening in time for them (but not for Latin Easter), the stringent Israeli measures have marred the atmosphere of and Holy Saturday and Orthodox Easter celebrations, as shared by Dimitri Diliani, head of the National Christian Assembly in the Holy Land. Diliani accused the Israeli government of racism. “This racist and oppressive Israeli measure of preventing access to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre on Holy Saturday targets the Palestinian presence in general and the Christian presence in particular in its historical depth, its living heritage, and its faith dimension,”5 he told Jerusalem Story. “It also infringes upon a firmly established right to practice religious rites, a right that we have preserved through centuries of steadfastness in this city.”

Diliani stressed that Israel is practicing religious persecution that is targeting every Palestinian, Muslim or Christian as a tool for colonial domination, in order to reshape the identity of Jerusalem. Recent data support this observation (see Bigoted Harassment of Christians in Jerusalem Increased in 2025). Such aggressive behavior, however, will not eliminate the centuries old, deeply rooted Palestinian Christian and Muslim presence in this land.

It is well known that Jerusalem lives on the margins of time. It pays the price for every tension in the world, and it also pays the price for the extreme recklessness of the Israeli government. This is why Jerusalemites find themselves alone facing the storms coming from every direction, and they must learn how to live among these storms to preserve their historic and cultural heritage, even though life has become unbearable.

“By God, our life is not life, everything is difficult for us, and yet we must live for the sake of Jerusalem,”6 said Adam Abdul Rahman from haret al-Sa’diyya in the Old City.