The exclusion of Kufr Aqab by the Annexation and Separation Wall Another major tool pushing Palestinians outside the borders of the Jerusalem Municipality is the Annexation and Separation Wall. The construction of the Wall between 2003 and 2006 resulted in many home demolitions and withdrawals of building permits. Furthermore, different Palestinian neighborhoods, such as Kufr Aqab, Shu’fat refugee camp, Ras Khamis, Dahiyat al Salam or al-Walaja, even though within the Jerusalem municipality jurisdiction, became geographically excluded from Jerusalem as they ended up on the ‘Palestinian’, eastern, side of the Wall.146 Today, an estimated 90,000 Palestinian inhabitants are barred entry to Jerusalem. Some 60,000 of them live in Kufr Aqab, in the north of East Jerusalem.147 This is three times more than before the construction of the Wall. The continuing tendency of population increase is mainly guided by one impulse: protecting their residency right to the city of Jerusalem (see box on Center of Life). Center of Life Israel’s Ministry of Interior initiated a “center of life” policy whereby residency became a matter to be maintained by its holder through daily practice. The policy gave the Ministry of Interior the power to invalidate the status of a permanent resident if it determined that their “center of life” had moved “outside of Israel” – this includes Palestinian-controlled areas of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The policy made residency revocation easier by establishing more stringent criteria than the previous Entry into Israel Regulations. To implement this policy, the Ministry of Interior began to demand that permanent residents prove that Jerusalem was their “center of life” by submitting a high standard of proof, including home ownership papers or rent contracts, bills for municipal services like water and electricity, payment of municipal taxes, telephone bills, salary slips, proof of receiving medical care in the city and certification of any children’s school registration in the city. Because of the stringency and often nontransparent processes of the policy, the “center of life” was – and still remains – an impediment even to a person who had never lived outside of the city. All Palestinian Jerusalemites who could not meet the severe criteria for seven years or more lost their right to live in the city and were forced to leave their homes, their families and their jobs. Palestinians with revoked residency were denied the right to live and work in Jerusalem as well as in Israel. Furthermore, they and their families were deprived of social benefits. The status of their children was also revoked, except for cases in which the second parent had valid residency status.148 146 Chiodelli, “The Jerusalem Master Plan: Planning into the Conflict,” 13. 147 Grassroots Al-Quds, “Kufr Aqab.” 148 BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights, Denial of Residency: Working Paper No. 16. 45