Erasing Palestine: Jerusalem as a frontline in Israel’s war
Overlooking the rubble of a demolished house in East Jerusalem, 13 December 2023
Mariam Barghouti reports in The New Arab on 5 December 2024:
On Sunday, 1 December, 14-year-old Ayham Salaymah from Jerusalem was sentenced to a year in jail under the pretext of throwing stones at Israeli settlers, becoming Israel’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.
“You can tell it’s an existential issue, it’s an erasure and replacement campaign,” Adnan Barq, 24, from the Old City in Jerusalem, tells The New Arab. “What we are witnessing in Palestine is different forms of ultra-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 “undivided” 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.