Israel Police

It was the growing political importance of Jerusalem as the national capital and the increase of security and terrorist incidents (especially during the Arab Intifada [uprising] of the 1980s), that brought about the 1991 decision to make the city a separate Police District (until then it had been part of Southern District).

Jerusalem District has no Sub-Districts, but three large regional police stations: Moriah in the south, Zion in the north, and David in Jerusalem's Old City. There is a police station in the expanding satellite town of Bet Shemesh and a special Holy Sites Unit. Border Guard units are a regular part of the operational force and a special undercover unit works within the District's Arab population.

Three sub-stations (Shalem, Oz, and Shafat) have been established in the eastern section of the city, where the Arab population lives, in order to improve policing services to Jerusalem's Arab citizens.

Several small Community Policing Centers have been set up to serve large residential neighborhoods in the city and its environs.

Scores of Civil Guard bases are scattered around the city, from which hundreds of volunteers operate all year round.

CRIME AND POLICING PATTERNS

The three activities taking up the bulk of police time and resources are providing security and maintaining public order in the city. The concentration of government institutions makes Jerusalem a natural focus of demonstrations, protest vigils, and political gatherings. Its unique status as both the state's political and religious capital and the polarized heterogeneity of the population makes for frequent, occasionally violent, friction between Jews and Arabs, between the political Left and Right, and between Ultra-Orthodox and secular Jews.

There are some 150 official visits each year by foreign leaders, all of which impose, each time, an extra security and traffic control burden.

The extraordinary sensitivity of the area of the Temple Mount, Wailing Wall, and El Aqsa and Dome of the Rock Mosques, compels the District to bring in special forces for the Moslem Friday prayers and for the whole Moslem holy month of Ramadan. Quite often, large extra forces are brought in from other parts of the country, to cope with terrorist attacks or special events.

The chief categories of crime in the city are property and vehicle theft.