39% of families in Jerusalem live below poverty line: Report

By Abdel Raouf Arnaout

JERUSALEM (AA) – Around 39% of Palestinian and Jewish families in Jerusalem live below the poverty line, according to an Israeli report on Wednesday.

“The data on the city's poverty rate presents a worrying picture,” the Jerusalem Institute for Policy Research said in a report published on the 56th anniversary of Israel’s occupation of East Jerusalem.

In 2021, 125,900 families in Jerusalem (39%) and 202,400 children, or half of the city’s children, were living below the poverty line, the report said.

“The poverty rate in Jerusalem is significantly higher than the rate in Israel at large, where 21% of the families and 28% of the children were living below the poverty line,” it said.

The report found that the poverty rate reached 43% among Jerusalem’s Hared population, a slightly higher figure than among Israel's Haredi population, which hit 40%.

“Among Jerusalem's Arab population, 60% were living below the poverty line, compared with 39% among the Arab population in Israel at large,” it said.

The report showed that a total of 11,900 new residents moved to Jerusalem from other localities in Israel in 2021.

In 2021 the number of immigrants “who chose to live in Jerusalem - 3,700 - was the highest among Israel's major cities,” it added.

Jerusalem remains at the heart of the decades-long Middle East conflict, with Palestinians hoping that East Jerusalem -- occupied by Israel since 1967 -- might eventually serve as the capital of an independent Palestinian state.

*Writing by ikram Kouachi