In response to the Palestinian statehood bid, the Israeli government has decided to promote zoning plans for the area known as E1, northeast of Jerusalem. The project is intended to link annexed East Jerusalem with the mega-settlement of Ma'aleh Adumin, thus finally making the creation of a contiguous Palestinian State impossible.  By Ir Amim E1 (derived from “East 1”) is a term applied by the Ministry of Housing to an area located just east of the Jerusalem municipal boundary, on the hills between Ma’aleh Adummim and Jerusalem. It lies north of the Jerusalem-Ma’aleh Adummim road and edges the Palestinian towns…

While Israelis are breathing a sigh of relief that quiet has mostly been restored (for the time being), and life can supposedly just go back to normal, with Gaza out of sight and out of mind, the other elephant in the room - the West Bank and East Jerusalem - is all but quiet. This morning (Sunday) a "price tag" attack was identified on a car in Shuafat, a Palestinian refugee camp in East Jerusalem, which is located inside the city's municipal borders (and thus under total Israeli jurisdiction). The car has the word "Gaza" graffitied on it, as pictured here in…

 The wall was built to stop suicide bombers from entering Israel, so they say. But the people who do enter Israel on a daily basis are the tens of thousands of Palestinians who work here. Some go through hours of waiting at checkpoints, others climb the wall and risk injury or arrest – but all have experienced a dramatic change for the worse in their lives. Project photography: Oren Ziv / Activestills We arrive at Eyal checkpoint at 4:30 a.m. The sky is pitch black yet minivans packed with laborers are already passing us in the opposite direction on their…

By Alexis Thiry and Markus Schlotterbeck For the people using the brand new light rail in Jerusalem, Shuafat is just another station servicing an Arab neighborhood in the city. But Shuafuat refugee camp, stuck between the French Hill and Pisgat Ze’ev settlements (and distinct from the nearby neighborhood of the same name), is a third world community that lies just two kilometers away from the country's most important tourist sites. Founded in 1964 by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), when East Jerusalem was still part of Jordan, the camp is now home to 11,000 registered refugees, though…

Palestinian residents of Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem, which is grossly lacking in municipal services, are looking elsewhere for help with garbage collection. Mynet (Hebrew) reports that residents of Qalandia and Kfar Akab are “drowning in garbage.”  The two Palestinian neighborhoods are within the Israeli-drawn municipal boundaries of Jerusalem, but located on the West Bank side of the separation barrier. According to Mynet, Qalandia has been without municipal garbage service for eight months, resulting in an “unbearable stench” and “a plague of mice, rats, and roaches.” In Qalandia, Mynet reports, the local committee and residents have come up with creative solutions to…