The municipality has installed intrusive surveillance cameras throughout the Old City of Jerusalem. They watch Palestinians’ every move. Security forces use the Mabat 2000 facial recognition technology and other systems. According to a 2022 report by Amnesty International (AI), the Mabat 2000 system “enables Israeli authorities to identify protesters and keep Palestinians under constant observation, even as they go about their ordinary daily activities. Such systems have expanded alongside illegal Israeli settlements, which have encroached upon Palestinian neighborhoods in the Old City and other areas in occupied East Jerusalem.”1 The field survey that AI did for this report found that there were one to two CCTV cameras “for every five metres walked” in the Old City at that time. And even outside of it:
"From Sheikh Jarrah to Damascus Gate, a distance of approximately two kilometres, the Israeli authorities have installed blanket camera surveillance as well as towering surveillance poles with additional surveillance equipment. While the infrastructure is at its most visible at Damascus Gate, it is diffused throughout occupied East Jerusalem, in particular inside the Old City, where new surveillance technologies compound old patterns of harassment, dispossession, segregation and denial of rights."2
This is in addition to surveillance systems installed by private parties, generally settlers and their protection services.
As seen in this photo, the ubiquitous cameras are a jarring feature of the otherwise cobblestoned, harmonious, ancient landscape of the Old City.