Within days of capturing East Jerusalem in the 1967 war, Israel extended its law and municipal boundaries over roughly 70 km2, including the Old City, and later passed the 1980 Jerusalem Law declaring a united Jerusalem its 'eternal and undivided' capital. Palestinian residents were granted Israeli permanent-resident status rather than citizenship, a status that can be and has been revoked; human rights groups document over 14,000 such revocations since 1967, alongside home demolitions and settlement construction in and around the city. Roughly 370,000 Palestinians live in East Jerusalem today alongside a growing Israeli settler population. No other state recognizes Israeli sovereignty over East Jerusalem, and most embassies remain in Tel Aviv or, more recently, some in western Jerusalem only.
Israel extended its law, jurisdiction, and municipal administration over East Jerusalem within days of capturing it in June 1967, and formally declared unified Jerusalem its capital under the 1980 Jerusalem Law.
The Israeli census conducted in the annexed area in September 1967 counted about 66,000 Palestinian residents, and roughly 68,600 including the villages added to the enlarged municipal boundary, which took in some 70 square kilometres of the West Bank rather than only the former Jordanian municipality. Those counted were granted permanent residency rather than citizenship, a status that can be and has been revoked.
Both fields are null because the annexation itself was a legislative and administrative act: the extension of Israeli law and municipal boundaries in June 1967 and the 1980 Basic Law caused no distinct loss of life, and combat deaths in the June 1967 battle for Jerusalem and later policing and attack deaths in the city are counted under other events. No body has produced a death toll attributable to the annexation measures.
The ICJ's 2024 advisory opinion identified measures altering the demographic composition of East Jerusalem and discriminatory legislation requiring repeal, and UN OCHA's demolition monitoring and Israeli organisations such as HaMoked and B'Tselem have documented punitive and permit-based home demolitions and the revocation of Palestinian Jerusalemites' permanent-residency status.
Palestine