JERUSALEM, October 5, 2025 (WAFA) – The Jerusalem Governorate documented the violations and crimes committed by the Israeli occupation and its colonists in Jerusalem since the onset of the genocidal war on the Gaza Strip in October 2023, showing a dangerous escalation in the policy of collective punishment against Jerusalem’s residents and its holy sites.
The Governorate said in a report issued Sunday that since October 7, 2023, a total of 97 Palestinians in Jerusalem have been killed, reflecting the occupation’s continued disregard for Palestinian lives.
It added that Israeli authorities continue to withhold the bodies of 49 Palestinians from Jerusalem, in a blatant violation of the sanctity of the dead and of international humanitarian law, which prohibits the withholding of bodies and calls for respect for the human dignity of the victims.
The report documented 491 injuries resulting from the excessive use of force by Israeli occupation forces against Jerusalemites. It said that these included live and rubber-coated metal bullet wounds, severe beatings, and cases of suffocation caused by tear gas, in addition to injuries among Jerusalemite workers pursued by occupation forces while trying to reach their workplaces.
In a blatant violation of the historical and legal status quo, 122,784 colonists have stormed Al-Aqsa Mosque since October 7 under heavy Israeli police protection, the report said. It explained that the Israeli police imposed a morning and evening visitation system in an attempt to enforce a temporal and spatial division of the mosque and erase its Islamic identity.
The report documented 2,688 detentions across various neighborhoods and towns in Jerusalem Governorate since the beginning of the aggression, accompanied by harsh and unjust rulings issued by Israeli occupation courts. It noted that a total of 723 prison sentences were issued against Jerusalemite detainees, along with 171 house arrest orders, 303 expulsion orders from Al-Aqsa Mosque, the Old City, and other key areas, as well as 18 travel ban orders.
The report further noted that the occupation authorities took advantage of the world’s preoccupation with the war crimes and genocide in Gaza to escalate their punitive measures against Jerusalemites and impose further collective punishments and unfair rulings, as part of a systematic effort to silence the Palestinian voice in Jerusalem.
It said that since October 7, Israeli authorities have carried out 742 demolitions and land-leveling operations in Jerusalem Governorate, most of which targeted Palestinian homes and structures under the pretext of construction without permits. The report added that the occupation authorities rarely grant building permits to Jerusalemites, turning these practices into a systematic tool of Judaization aimed at emptying the city of its indigenous Palestinian residents.
The report affirmed that these figures reflect a systematic policy aimed at emptying Jerusalem of its Palestinian residents and imposing a new colonial, Judaizing reality.
It explained that the withholding of bodies constitutes a grave violation of the Geneva Conventions, while mass detentions and arbitrary rulings amount to unlawful detention prohibited under international law. The report stressed that demolition operations are considered war crimes under Article 53 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, and that incursions into Al-Aqsa Mosque constitute a breach of the historical status quo and a direct threat to the site’s Islamic identity.
The Governorate stressed that this report comes amid a systematic Israeli escalation against Jerusalem and its people, in an attempt to impose new facts on the ground and erase the Palestinian presence in the city, amid troubling international silence that encourages the occupation to continue its violations without accountability.
T.R.
