Settlement ring

Israeli settlement belts in and around Jerusalem. Starting with the occupation of the city in 1967, successive Israeli governments have built and expanded settlements in and around Jerusalem in the shape of three consecutive rings. The Outer Ring refers to the belt of suburban and rural settlements around Jerusalem outside the Israeli-defined municipal boundaries of the city and within the rest of the occupied West Bank; the Inner Ring comprises settlements in East Jerusalem within the municipal boundaries; and the Core Ring constitutes settlements within Palestinian neighborhoods in and around the Old City of Jerusalem. Israel’s strategic goal with the three settlement rings and their associated infrastructure is to establish “facts on the ground” that solidify Israeli control of the city, thereby limiting the growth of Palestinian localities, severing them from one another and from their historic capital, and dismantling the possibility of Palestinian sovereignty in Jerusalem.