This topic explores how Israel has used Jewish settlement as a pivotal strategy to control, disrupt, and radically transform the Jerusalem geopolitical landscape. Launched directly after Israeli's occupation of the city in 1967, the process of settlement building is fundamentally predicated on the dispossession of Palestinians and the destruction of their collective fabric and communal capacity—cities, villages, neighborhoods, and individual homes.
Featured in This Topic
The crisis in Gaza is providing cover for the expansion of Israeli settlements in Silwan.
Israel’s most recent settlement proposal in East Jerusalem would further cut off the city from the remainder of the West Bank.
Israel’s new right-wing governing coalition is accelerating settlement construction in and widely around East Jerusalem, expediting its Judaization.
Israel is rapidly advancing settlement plans across East Jerusalem; 2023 seems sure to be a record-breaking year.
A new Jewish settlement in the heart of Palestinian Ras al-Amud hurtles rapid-fire toward approval.
The international community has managed to delay the E1 settlement plan once again, but it is only a matter of time until Israel puts it back on the table.
From 1967 to 1993, successive Israeli governments laid the foundations for an expanding settlement enterprise to Judaize Jerusalem and its surroundings.
Israel’s settlements in and around Jerusalem take the shape of three rings that contribute to Judaizing the city and fragmenting its Palestinian communities.
The Story in Numbers
150
Number of state-authorized settlements in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem [1]
140
Number of settlement outposts in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem [2]
15
Number of state-authorized settlements within the Israeli boundaries of East Jerusalem [3]
680,000+
The Israeli settler population across the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, as of 2022 [4]
350,000+
A conservative estimate of the Israeli settler population in the larger Jerusalem region (more than 50 percent of the total Israeli settler population in the West Bank) [5]
220,000+
The Israeli settler population within the Israeli-imposed Jerusalem municipal boundaries (approximately a third of the total settler population in the West Bank) [6]
35
Percentage of Palestinian-owned lands of the area of occupied East Jerusalem (within the municipal boundaries) that Israel has expropriated for Jewish settlements [7]
13
Percentage of the land of the area of occupied East Jerusalem (within the municipal boundaries) that Israel has allotted to Palestinian use, despite their being nearly 40 percent of the population [8]
Notes
[1] This number is based on a cross-check calculation using the following sources: Mohammed Haddad, “Mapping Israeli Occupation,” Al Jazeera, May 18, 2021; Charlie Hoyle, “Interactive Timeline: The History of Israeli Settlements since 1967,” The New Arab, November 20, 2019; “Jerusalem,” Peace Now; “Settlements,” B’Tselem, January 16, 2019.
[2] This number is based on a cross-check calculation using the following sources: Haddad, "Mapping Israeli Occupation"; Hoyle, “Interactive Timeline”; “Jerusalem”; “Settlements.”
[3] See The Three Israeli Settlement Rings in and around East Jerusalem: Supplanting Palestinian Jerusalem, Table 1.
[4] Haddad, “Mapping Israeli Occupation.”
[5] Based on numbers from Haddad, “Mapping Israeli Occupation”; Hoyle, “Interactive Timeline.”
[6] Haddad, “Mapping Israeli Occupation.”
[7] “Israeli Settlements and International Law,” Amnesty International, 2019.
[8] “Israeli Settlements and International Law.”
One of Jerusalem’s most important villages, al-Walaja, has been suffocated by Israeli settlements and their infrastructure and converted into an open-air prison.
In Silwan, art installations painted with powerful messages offer a sense of dignity, resilience, and hope to a community under continuous threat.