Land Research Center

The settlement of Ma'aleh Hazitim lies on Silwan lands, in the Ras al-Amud area, overlooking the Old City of Jerusalem. The occupation municipality established this settlement near the Ras al-Amud police station. This settlement was established and plans for construction were drawn up in 1997 on the orders of Jerusalem Mayor Ehud Olmert, after the land was confiscated from the family of Hussein al-Ghoul.

In 2003, a group of settlers seized some Palestinian homes in the area in which the settlement is located, which is located behind the Ras al-Amud police station.

In 2010, 66 Jewish settler families were settled in the colony in place of the Palestinian families expelled from their land. For more, see the report issued by the Land Research Center at the time (click here).

A settlement process started in the years from 2011 to 2017, It now includes more than 110 families of settlers, and the settlement of Ma'aleh Hazitim to the west has been merged with the settlement of Ma'alot David (converted from a police station to a settlement in 2008) to the east, separated by the main street of Ras al-Amud. In addition, a community center was built to serve the settlers, and a bathtub 'religious pools'.

It is important to mention that the settlement of Ma'aleh Hazitim is the largest of the settlements and outposts in the vicinity of Jerusalem, and is inhabited by the extremist Ariah King “the godfather of settlement in Jerusalem”, who led several Zionist demonstrations calling for tighter security around this settlement. This prompted the settlers to establish a security apparatus of the settlers themselves, heavily armed, in addition to the presence of barbed wire, police patrols and surveillance cameras, as this settlement is located in the heart of the Palestinian neighborhood of Ras al-Amud. For this reason, many residents of the neighborhood are harassed by beating, arresting, blocking the street with cement blocks whenever the settlers want to.

The occupation concentrates its settlements in Ras al-Amud, outposts in Silwan, the Old City, al-Tur, Wadi al-Joz, Sheikh Jarrah, and al-Thawri. Together, these settlements constitute a belt of pressure on Jerusalem, which isolates it from its natural Palestinian surroundings, and constitutes one of the most dangerous operations of Judaization of Jerusalem and imbuing it with an Israeli tint. Its effects are increasing on a daily basis, which doubles the danger to Jerusalem and its Palestinian citizens, and which leads to displacement, all of this in addition to the ban on building, confiscation of land and demolishing homes with organized and long-term plans to bring more settlers to Jerusalem.