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This article is the first of a two-part report covering Israel's practices towards Palestinians over the past year - showcasing a broader campaign of ethnic cleansing which transcends the war on Gaza and the use of lethal weapons such as airstrikes, shelling, and drone warfare

On Sunday, 1 December, 14-year-oldĢżAyham SalaymahĢżfrom Jerusalem was sentenced to a year in jail under the pretext of throwing stones at Israeli settlers, becoming Israelā€™s youngest-ever prisoner in the process.

While Israeli violence is the most pronounced in Gaza, the project of settler-colonial expansion has spared no Palestinian, wherever they may live.

In Jerusalem, Palestinians have faced increasingly draconian measures by the Israeli government both before, and during, the war on Gaza, which began in October 2023.

ā€œYou can tell itā€™s an existential issue, itā€™s an erasure and replacement campaign,ā€ Adnan Barq, 24, from the Old City in Jerusalem, tells °®Āžµŗ.

"What we are witnessing in Palestine is different forms ofĢżultra-violence."

Centring Jerusalem

Following the occupation of East Jerusalem in 1967, the Israeli government officially ratified its formal annexation in 1980 under the Jerusalem Law, declaring the city its ā€œundividedā€ capital.

This illegal move was unrecognised by the international community, including, until recently, by the US.

The Al-Aqsa Mosque compound and the Old City serve as some of the last remaining spaces in Jerusalem where Palestinian identity and culture are still visible and expressed.

Barq, who grew up in the Old City, says that the Aqsa compound has historically served not only as a religious sanctum but also as a playground, social gathering point, and public space for studying, celebrating, and grieving.

It has, however, witnessed a striking escalation of Israeli violence over the last few years.

ā€œThings got toxic,ā€ Barq told TNA, reflecting on his high school years in Jerusalem. ā€œThe police would beat us, the students, and then arrest us. I have friends that have lost their education because of these practices.ā€

After the then US President Donald Trump declared Jerusalem the capital of Israel inĢż, aggression towards Palestinians, who form roughly 40% of the population, only increased.

That same year, the Israeli government introduced the , which sought to change the demographics of the city by incorporating several West Bank settlements into Jerusalemā€™s Israeli municipal borders.

By 2018, the Israeli government established a new law for Jerusalem in which residencies for Palestinians could be revoked due to a ā€œā€ to the state. At the same time, Palestinians also risked revocation under other equally draconian measures, such as the , in which a period of absence from the city can result in your residency being removed.

For Palestinians in Jerusalem, who were given the status of ā€œpermanent residentā€Ģżrather than citizenship following Israelā€™s 1967 occupation, life is a labyrinthine system of subjugation at the best of times.

About 75% of Palestinians liveĢż compared to 26% of Jewish Israelis and there is systematic discrimination in the allocation of services such as education, roads, water, and sewage systems.

Only 13% of municipal land is designated for Palestinian residential purposes, with 87% allocated to Jewish neighbourhoods or green spaces.

These limitations in spatial access and the intentional deprivation of resources create a limited capacity for population development. While Palestinians constitute almost 40% of the cityā€™s population, for example, municipal spending on Palestinian neighbourhoods is capped at just .Ģż

In recent years, Ģżof Palestinian homes and infrastructure in Jerusalem haveĢżĢżand by August 2023 reached record highs.

Just 24 years old, Adnan Barq has lived his entire life under an emboldened Israeli regime.

ā€œWhat Israel has been doing is creating a coercive environment [in Jerusalem],ā€ Barq explains. Yet despite the continued targeting of the Old City, it is wider East Jerusalem neighbourhoods that are facing the brunt of Israelā€™s depopulation campaign.Ģż

ā€œThe idea is that East Jerusalem offers a better infrastructure for expansion, the Old City is the Old City, no matter how creative you get, you canā€™t get the ā€˜New Yorkā€™ look,ā€ Barq explains.

ā€œ[The Israeli government] is now busy with places like Silwan, these neighbourhoods around the Old City are the priority because there is the expansionist Bell project,ā€ he notes.

The Bell project is part of aĢżĢżof IsraeliĢż focused on reshaping the city, including areas of East Jerusalem. Construction plans in mostly Palestinian areas often lead to demographic and political changes, reducing the Palestinian presence and reshaping the city's identity to be more predominantly Jewish-Israeli.

As a result, more Palestinians have been coercively migrating from Jerusalem to areas such as Kafr Aqab, a town stranded in a no-manā€™s land behind Israelā€™s separation wall but officially part of Jerusalemā€™s Israeli municipal borders.

Other restrictions such as the denial ofĢżĢżmean that Palestinians are bureaucratically obstructed from marrying outside of the city because their spouse cannot easily receive Israeli-issued permits to be in Jerusalem. Living outside the city, meanwhile, could lead to the possibility of your residency rights being revoked.

For Palestinians in Jerusalem, the last decade was punctuated by state-sponsored surveillance and violence, including judicial and diplomatic warfare.

It is no accident that the Hamas-led offensive of October 2023 was dubbed ā€˜Toufan Al-Aqsaā€™Ģżor ā€˜Al-Aqsa Floodā€™, a reference to the rise of settler and state violence against Palestinians in Jerusalem and increasing fears that Israelā€™s far-right government was agitating to change the status quo of the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound.

Months before 7 October, the Israeli minister of national security,Ģż, began calling for ā€˜,ā€™ aĢżlarge-scale military operationĢżin East Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank.Ģż

During the past year, meanwhile, the extremist minister has undertaken provocative visits to the Al-Aqsa compound and called to allow Jewish prayer, a move which drew widespread criticism.

Beyond Gaza: Jerusalem after 7 October

ā€œIn sum, what Israel is doing is displacing Palestinians by choice in that Palestinians are forced to leave Jerusalem - including the Old City,ā€ Barq tells TNA.

As Israel focuses on expelling Palestinians from their homes in East Jerusalem via coercive bureaucracy, house demolitions, or systemic arrest campaigns, the Old City has witnessed an increase in daily harassment and violence from Israeli soldiers and settlers.Ģż

ā€œIn the last year, [Israeli forces] started to have new ways with us. Before 7 October, soldiers would commonly push their bodies against us and frisk us, sometimes hitting our knees,ā€ Barq says.

ā€œThe post-October edition is not only one or two soldiers against you, but at least three where they push you against a wall and have a soldier come whisper in your ear sexual threats against us and our families. Itā€™s an attempt to provoke a response so they can beat us.ā€Ģż

Since October 2023, the Old City in Jerusalem has been largely empty, save for Israeli forces and repeated incursions by armed settlers, which often turn violent.

Damascus Gate, which has historically been a gathering hub for Palestinian families, especially young people, now resembles a military base full of border police and soldiers who racially profile Palestinians and subject them to a series of strip searches, indefinite detention, and physical violence which can turn lethal.

Without any protection from state and settler violence, the Hamas attacks of 7 October saw Israel intensifying its harassment and repression of Palestinians in Jerusalem, in a bid to ultimately displace them from the city.

ā€œBefore 7 October, there was some leeway to try and argue for your rights when an Israeli soldier wants to beat you, or at least yell back,ā€ Barq says. ā€œNow, if you sneeze, youā€™re getting shot.ā€Ģż

Criminalising resistance

ā€œSomething that is creepy after 7 October is the way [Israeli forces] force you to unlock your phone,ā€ Barq tells TNA. ā€œThe soldier/police would take the phone and put it towards your face to unlock and then go through the phone and open different applications and if they find anything related to resistance, or Hamas, even if it's news, then they beat you up severely.ā€Ģż

According to Barq, young Palestinians arenā€™t always detained, but they are always beaten.

ā€œLook at the process: you either open your phone and they look through it for ā€˜terrorist contentā€™ and they beat you and possibly detain you, or you refuse to give your phone and you are beaten. Either way, prepare to be beaten,ā€ he says.

In Jerusalem, daily life for Palestinians has become a series of obstacles at the most basic level. Just walking around the city risks the possibility of being targeted and attacked.Ģż

The way Israel allows or justifies these measures is through what is known as the , which was adopted by the Israeli Knesset in November 2016. However, in November 2023, just four weeks into the war on Gaza, the Israeli Knesset amended the law to criminalise the "systematic and continuous consumption" of materials associated with terrorist organisations, with individuals facing up to one year in prison.

Although the amendment is only applicable for two years, its key feature is the broad definition of terrorism and terrorist organisations, allowing enhanced penalties, procedural changes, and special police powers.

For Palestinians, this law has meant a rise in state-sponsored violence. ā€œI have had a friend taken by soldiers in Jerusalem, and they found a photo that would constitute ā€˜terroristā€™ materials, and the soldiers began to beat him. When a friend called his phone a soldier answered and said, ā€˜come get your friendā€™. But when he went, soldiers then began to beat him up, and the soldiers kept doing this.ā€Ģż

As a Palestinian from Jerusalem, Barq is no stranger to daily Israeli violence. But another group of Palestinians, living under a different form of Israeli rule, is also increasingly experiencing Israelā€™s ā€˜ultra-violenceā€™ and coercive measures.

While Israel destroys Gaza with military force and continues to build settlements in the occupied West Bank, intending to annex it, Palestinians with Israeli citizenship have also become entangled in a violent relationship with a state that once forced them to live under military rule and now, especially since 7 October, has attempted to control every aspect of their daily life as citizens.

Part 2 explores how Palestinian citizens of Israel have faced a growing climate of fear and repression since the war on Gaza began to suppress any expression of their identity and connection with Palestinians in the occupied territories

Mariam Barghouti is a writer and journalist based in the West Bank. She has been covering the region as a reporter and analyst for ten years, served as the senior Palestine correspondent for Mondoweiss,Ģżand is a member of the Marie Colvin Journalist Network.Ģż

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