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Most Jerusalem Palestinians live in poverty: Israeli study
Palestinians in East Jerusalem, including three out of every four children, live below the poverty line, an Israeli rights group said on Sunday, accusing the state of neglect and discrimination.
"A unified Jerusalem does not exist," the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) said in a report released this week as Israel begins celebrations to mark the 43rd anniversary of its 1967 capture of Arab East Jerusalem.
"The truth is, two cities exist side by side," the report said, challenging Israel's claim that it unified the Holy City after annexing the Arab sector in a move not recognized by the international community.
Seventy-five percent of Palestinian children in East Jerusalem live in poverty compared with 45 percent of the city's Jewish children, the report said.
"Over 95,000 children in East Jerusalem live in a perpetual state of poverty," ACRI said this week.
Despite the rampant poverty, only 10 percent of East Jerusalem's 300,000 Palestinians have access to social services, it added.
The neglect extends to just about every sector of life in the Arab sector, and ACRI blamed this on the authorities.