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“Israel has had a policy of restricting the number of Palestinians in Jerusalem to maintain the demographic balance,” Sarit Michaeli, the spokeswoman for the Israeli human rights group Btselem told The Media Line. “If they leave Jerusalem for seven years, Israel can take away their residency permit, and that has been done in hundreds of cases.”

Palestinians agree that holding on to Jerusalem residency is important for their freedom of movement. It also gives them access to Israeli social security and health care, widely considered one of the best systems in the world.

Look at my ID card. My nationality is blank. I am a Palestinian. Why don’t they write that in my ID card?

Most Palestinians in east Jerusalem have ID cards that look almost exactly like those of Jewish citizens. The main difference is that they are permanent residents, not citizens. In the ID card, the line that says “nationality” is blank.

Hiba Sanduqa, 27, a social worker who has lived with her Jordanian husband in Dubai for the past three years, says that must change.

“I have a blue ID card, but my husband who is Jordanian doesn’t have one so he can’t come here very easily,” she told The Media Line at the Qalandya checkpoint between Jerusalem and the West Bank. “Look at my ID card. My nationality is blank. I am a Palestinian. Why don’t they write that in my ID card?”

Sanduqa has come to visit her family in Jerusalem and was on her way to other relatives in Nablus. Her trip brings up one of the ironies of the current situation. The West Bank is divided into three areas –A, B, and C. Area A, which includes about 18% of the land of the West Bank but 55% of the Arab population, includes cities like Ramallah, Nablus and Bethlehem, and is under sole Palestinian control – administrative and security. Area B, about 21% of the West Bank is under joint Israeli and Palestinian control; and Area C, about 61% of the land including all of the Jewish communities on post-1967 land, is under complete Israeli control.