A city mired in political and religious controversies

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A city mired in political and religious controversies

Occupied Jerusalem - Occupied Jerusalem's status is one of the thorniest issues of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

By AFP

Published: Thu 7 Dec 2017, 7:13 AM

Last updated: Thu 7 Dec 2017, 4:07 PM

US President Donald Trump has recognise occupied Jerusalem as Israel's capital later on Wednesday in a move that would upturn decades of precedent and run counter to international consensus.
The city is revered by major faiths but mired in political, as well as religious, disputes. Its status is one of the thorniest issues of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Most thorniest issue of Mideast conflict
> Occupied Jerusalem's status is one of the thorniest issues of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
> The city is considered sacred by major faiths.
> Western Wall is among last remnants of the second Jewish temple, destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD.
> Al Aqsa mosque complex, Islam's third-holiest site, is also situated here.
> The city is also home to the holiest sites in Christianity.
> Israel seized the eastern zone in the Six-Day War of 1967.
> So far there is no claim of responsibility for thed by violened by violene attack.

Jewish Israelis consider Jerusalem to be their 3,000-year-old capital. The city's Western Wall is among the last remnants of the second Jewish temple, destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD.
The Palestinians, who make up about a third of the modern city's population of some 882,000, claim east Jerusalem as the capital of the state to which they aspire. It also has great religious significance for Muslims as it houses the Al Aqsa mosque complex, Islam's third-holiest site, and the emblematic gold-topped Dome of the Rock.
While Palestinians have been divided in recent years between President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah and Hamas, Jerusalem remains one of their most powerful rallying points. The city is also home to the holy sites in Christianity, including the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, built on the site where most Christians believe Jesus was crucified and buried.
A 1947 United Nations plan prescribed partitioning British-run Palestine into three separate entities: a Jewish state, an Arab state and a separate enclave, or "corpus separatum", consisting of Jerusalem, nearby Bethlehem and holy places in the vicinity to be under UN control. The proposal was accepted by Zionist leaders but rejected by the Arabs.
Following the departure of the British in 1948, the Jews declared an independent state of Israel, followed by fighting with Palestinians and neighbouring Arab states.
At the end of the war, east Jerusalem was in Jordanian hands while the new Jewish state set up its capital in the west. The two sides were divided by barbed wire, sandbags and machinegun emplacements until the Six-Day War of 1967, when Israel seized and occupied the eastern zone. It declared the whole city its eternal and united capital and in 1980 annexed east Jerusalem, a move never recognised by the international community.
Until the annexation, 13 countries maintained their embassies in Jerusalem: Bolivia, Chile, Columbia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, The Netherlands, Panama, Uruguay and Venezuela.
They all relocated to Tel Aviv, where other states had their legations. Costa Rica and El Salvador returned to the city in 1984 but headed back to Tel Aviv in 2006.