Opinion: How urban planning plays a role in Israel-Palestine

Professor Haim Yacobi (UCL Bartlett Development Planning Unit) co-authors an article on the effect that urban planning has in Israel-Palestine, saying that even supposedly neutral urban trends such as privatisation and gentrification can be co-opted to divide areas. On May 21, a ceasefire was agreed to between Israel, Hamas and Islamic Jihad, putting an end to a bloody 11-day conflict. Despite the relative calm that has ensued, the violence of these past weeks across Israel-Palestine has unveiled distinct urban fronts. The conflict was triggered in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood of East Jerusalem and the al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem. It took hold of the Israeli so-called mixed cities, such as Jaffa and Lod/al-Lidd, and engulfed Gaza, where Israeli air raids retaliated against the rockets Hamas fired on cities including Tel Aviv. For some, this felt like civil war. As our research demonstrates, these urban frontlines reveal how urban planning itself is weaponised.