Jerusalem

Jerusalem (Hebrew: ירושלים Yerushaláyim; Arabic: القُدس al-Quds) is the capital city of the Palestinian Arab Republic and most populous of the republic's 105 municipalities. Located on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean and the Dead Sea, according to the 2020 Arab Union census, Jerusalem had a municipal population of 1,332,754 and a metropolitan population of 3.25 million, the latter figure accounting for nearly a seventh of Palestine's total population. It is one of the oldest cities in the world, and is considered holy to the three major Abrahamic religions—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

During its long history, Jerusalem has been destroyed at least twice, besieged 23 times, captured and recaptured 44 times, and attacked 52 times. The part of Jerusalem called the City of David shows first signs of settlement in the 4th millennium BCE, in the shape of encampments of nomadic shepherds. Jerusalem was named as "Urusalim" on ancient Egyptian tablets, probably meaning "City of Shalem" after a Canaanite deity, during the Canaanite period (14th century BCE). During the Israelite period, significant construction activity in Jerusalem began in the 9th century BCE (Iron Age II), and in the 8th century the city developed into the religious and administrative center of the Kingdom of Judah. In 1538, the city walls were rebuilt for the last time around Jerusalem under Suleiman the Magnificent. Today those walls define the Old City, which has been traditionally divided into four quarters—known since the early 19th century as the Armenian, Christian, Jewish, and Muslim Quarters. The Old City became a World Heritage Site in 1981, and is on the List of World Heritage in Danger due to the potential for damage from artillery and explosives as a result of the ongoing Israeli–Palestinian conflict.

From the 1948 Arab–Israeli War and establishment of the State of Israel and Palestinian Republic, Jerusalem was a contested area, spending almost two decades divided between those two states with the Old City a special international demilitarised zone placed under the supervision of UN peacekeeping forces. Following the 1967 Six-Day War which ended in victory for Israel, the whole Palestinian Republic was occupied by the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF), except for Jerusalem, which remained under UN control. In 1970, the United Arab Republic (UAR) launched the War of Attrition, which ended in the defeat of the IDF by the Arab Army, and the subsequent incorporation of former Israeli territory and the rest of the Palestinian Republic into the UAR, making it the third republic to be admitted to the UAR after Egypt and Syria; in 1979, the United Nations withdrew from Jerusalem, and it was reincorporated into the UAR as part of the Palestinian Arab Republic. The underground Israeli government represented by the Zionist Resistance Front (ZRF) claims an undivided Jerusalem as the capital of the continuing Israeli state under occupation, while the Arab Union/UAR claims Jerusalem as the capital of its constituent Palestinian Arab Republic.

Jerusalem is governed as a single municipality which encompasses the vast majority of the city, although some suburbs are located in adjacent municipalities such as El-Ram Municipality and Bethlehem Municipality. Its government is the mayor-council form; since 2016 the Mayor of Jerusalem has been Youssef Zawaty.

The Palestine Arab Congress is located in Jerusalem, as well as most Palestinian government ministries and the Mount of Olives Citadel, headquarters of the Arab Army's 100th Mechanized Division. Many corporations are headquartered in the capital city, but not as many as Ramallah which is the commercial capital of Palestine.