The town of Al-Eizariya is located in the southeast of the occupied city of Jerusalem, and is separated from Al-Aqsa Mosque only by the Ras Al-Amud neighborhood. The apartheid wall isolated it from the city of Jerusalem in 2002. Its current population is 40,000 people living on 2,600 dunams. It was named Al-Eizariya after the Prophet of God, Ezra, whom God caused to die for 100 years and then resurrected him, as mentioned in the Book of God.
The occupation has besieged it by establishing the Ma'ale Adumim settlement from the east and confiscating 7,500 dunams of its land for the benefit of settlements, and bypass roads and the racist separation wall besiege it from the west, and the occupation prevents any urban expansion of Al-Eizariya, specifically in the northwestern side.


permanent traffic crisis
For years, Al-Eizariya has been suffering from a constant and stifling traffic crisis, as it is the only passageway that connects the north of the West Bank to its south, after the occupation tightened its grip on the West Bank and closed all roads connecting the south of the West Bank to its north, thus restricting and controlling the movement of nearly 3 million Palestinians from the north and south via the Wadi al-Nar road that passes through the lands of Al-Eizariya. Despite the fact that this road lacks all traffic safety requirements with its extreme windings and narrowness, it ends at a junction that separates Al-Eizariya from the Ma'ale Adumim settlement, the largest settlement in the West Bank.

Regarding the solutions, Mr. Muhammad Hassan Matar, a member of the Al-Eizariya Municipal Council, said that the occupation is the primary cause of this crisis by closing the roads between the north and the south, and by preventing the Palestinians from using a bypass road that connects the settlers to settlement outposts such as the “Kedar” settlement, which was built on the lands of Al-Eizariya and Abu Dis towards the southeast.

Mohammed Hassan Matar - Member of Al-Eizariya Municipal Council

ASuffocating water crisis
The town contains six artesian wells that the occupation prevents from being used, in addition to the Wadi al-Hawd well, after the occupation stole those wells and prevented the people of al-Eizariya from benefiting from them. The Israeli company (Gihon) passes water quotas that are sufficient for twenty thousand people, while the population of the town is 40 thousand people, in addition to the Bedouin communities and parts of the town of Abu Dis.
Mr. Matar explains that what is required to avoid water cuts for the residents of Al-Eizariya municipality is to increase the quantity of water and increase the pressure to the normal level of “20-24” bars, instead of a pressure of “3-4” bars, since the quantity of water that Al-Eizariya obtains from “Jihon” is 2000-2600 “cups per day” and a thousand cups from the Wadi Al-Jahir well in Abu Dis, from which the municipality loses 49 % between lost and stolen.

Mr. Muhammad Matar, Abu Hassan, continues: “The available solutions after the agreements with this occupation have shackled us are to exploit our wells and water and not surrender to the racism of the “Jihon” Company. This water and benefiting from it is our legitimate right.”

Family problems and civil peace
Hardly a day or two passes without a family problem erupting in the town. Most of the time, the reformists lose the ability to contain it and it quickly turns into an exchange of fire, arson and vandalism, just like the rest of the cities in the West Bank due to the systematic tampering by the occupier in many forms of the social relations that regulate our society.
Al-Eizariya is classified as Area B based on the agreements between the Palestine Liberation Organization and the occupation entity, which means that the presence of the Palestinian police there is symbolic, and despite the opening of a Palestinian police station with a number of personnel that does not exceed the fingers of one hand, it is not able to preserve civil peace from tampering.



Mr. Muhammad Matar, a member of the Al-Eizariya Municipality, concluded by saying that since the moment of its election, the municipality has put the issue of civil peace on the table due to its great importance. It has worked to open a police station for the Palestinian police to reduce family problems and control matters according to our customs and traditions that reject division and fighting. We hope that in the future we will be able to reduce this phenomenon through cooperation between the municipality, dignitaries, mosque preachers, and Palestinian security agencies.