Planning in East Jerusalem Completely Halted by New Protocol
Systemic discrimination in the Israeli planning system has created a severe and longstanding housing crisis in the Palestinian neighborhoods of East Jerusalem. Planning in East Jerusalem has been inadequate and restrictive, ultimately neglecting to provide sufficient residential development for the Palestinian population. As a result, building permits are nearly impossible to obtain, which leads to countless demolitions of Palestinian homes per year.
Most of the land in Palestinian areas of East Jerusalem is unregistered private land. The road to obtaining full land registration is risky due to discriminatory laws and practices currently implemented in conjunction with the planning system – namely the Absentee Property Law and the Settlement of Land Title (SOLT) procedures. The planning authorities do not usually prepare plans on private land, even though they can and have done so in the past. They also do not tend to designate state land for Palestinian use as they do for Israelis, for example through the advancement of settlements. This is in stark contradiction to international obligations to provide for the welfare of East Jerusalem residents. The Palestinian residents themselves have filled the void to a minor extent, promoting their own plans when possible; most of the detailed plans in East Jerusalem in recent decades are private plans initiated by Palestinian landowners yet with very limited housing supply.
At the end of 2022, a new protocol was set in place, requiring landowners, interested in submitting private plans, to prove full ownership as part of the planning process. As a result, during 2023, not a single private plan on land that was never fully registered (most of East Jerusalem after the large land expropriations for settlements in the 1970s), passed the preliminary stage of the statutory process. As of the middle of 2024, only one such plan was accepted. In comparison, over the preceding five years, an average of nearly 100 private plans passed this preliminary stage annually, offering a minimal lifeline which has now been completely blocked.