Shelters are Needed to Protect the Residents of East Jerusalem Neighborhoods Beyond the Separation Wall
- ACRI
- 5 days ago
- 2 min read
On June 19, 2025, we approached the Mayor of Jerusalem, the Minister of Defense, and the commander of the Home Front Command on behalf of the residents of neighborhoods beyond the separation wall in Jerusalem, demanding that the receive protective shelters. These neighborhoods are home to about 150,000 people, Israeli citizens and permanent residents, and there are no protective shelters. Shelters and safe rooms have not been installed in homes; the municipality has not bothered to build public shelters; and even the public, health, and educational institutions operating in the neighborhoods are not protected, in part because they operate from rented buildings that do not meet the standard requirements for buildings.
In ACRI's appeal, Attorney Tal Hassin argued that leaving these neighborhoods without any form of protection cruelly violates residents' rights to life and bodily integrity, as well as to health, dignity, and equality. She further argued that against the backdrop of the fact that the Home Front Command began placing protective shelters in central cities, neglecting Jerusalem’s Palestinian residents is also blatant and illegal discrimination, and indicates troubling flaws in how decisions are made regarding the distribution of state-funded protective shelters.
The appeal states: "For many years, the neighborhoods beyond the separation wall have suffered from ongoing governmental neglect, expressed, among other ways, in the fact that the relevant authorities, led by the Jerusalem Municipality, have not bothered to plan, budget, and establish appropriate protection for their residents, and have abandoned them to their fate in times of emergency. Time after time, military operation after military operation, and now also in war, situations of which there are many in Israel, the residents find themselves without shelter from missiles and rockets."
ACRI's appeal, June 19, 2025 (Heb)
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