Full Analysis Summary
East Jerusalem settlement plans
Israel is preparing to advance two major settlement projects in occupied East Jerusalem.
One is a roughly 9,000-unit build on the former Qalandiya/Atarot airport site.
The other is a Nahalat Shimon (Sheikh Jarrah) plan that would displace about 40 Palestinian families.
Analysts say the Atarot plan, briefly shelved in December 2025, has been revived amid a post-Netanyahu–Trump geopolitical shift and U.S. stances that treat Jerusalem as outside negotiations.
Officials and critics characterize the moves as a concrete expansion of Israeli control over East Jerusalem territory and as steps that will physically dispossess Palestinian communities there.
Coverage Differences
Tone and emphasis
Al Jazeera foregrounds analyst Suhail Khalilieh's description of the plans and emphasizes legal and diplomatic remedies, while Evrim Ağacı repeats the project details but places stronger emphasis on the timing (briefly shelved then resurfaced) and attributes the revival to geopolitical encouragement after a Netanyahu–Trump meeting and U.S. stances treating Jerusalem as outside negotiations.
Jerusalem expansion plans
Analysts describe the Atarot project as a strategic chokehold intended to realize a much larger Greater Jerusalem by expanding Israeli-controlled municipal boundaries from roughly 71 sq km to about 246 sq km, an addition of roughly 175 sq km that would cover about 4.5% of the West Bank.
This enlargement would effectively preclude a contiguous Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem.
The Nahalat Shimon scheme is portrayed as part of a settlement ring north of the Old City designed to sever geographic continuity between Palestinian neighbourhoods such as Silwan, Mount of Olives and Sheikh Jarrah and to create isolated Palestinian population islands.
These descriptions frame the plans as deliberate territorial engineering rather than neutral urban planning.
Coverage Differences
Narrative framing
Both sources report the expansion figures and strategic intent, but Al Jazeera highlights Khalilieh’s language of ‘‘chokehold’’ and explicit mention that the expansion would 'preclude a contiguous Palestinian capital', framing the plans as territorial engineering; Evrim Ağacı reiterates the expansion and links it to other moves (E1 and southern expansions) that aim to connect East Jerusalem with nearby settlement blocs.
East Jerusalem displacement concerns
Critics say Israeli authorities use neutral planning language such as 'urban renewal' and bureaucratic tools, for example the unification of the Arnona property tax.
They argue these measures are employed to mask forced displacement and to pressure Palestinian residents into leaving.
Reporting notes more than 300 Palestinian homes were demolished in East Jerusalem in 2025, and analysts warn that once construction starts the facts on the ground are difficult to reverse.
Those concerns have prompted calls for urgent legal and diplomatic measures, including seeking provisional measures at the International Court of Justice and pressuring companies involved in the projects.
Coverage Differences
Focus on remedies vs. statistics
Al Jazeera emphasizes legal and diplomatic responses — urging ICJ provisional measures and company pressure — while Evrim Ağacı presents the same facts but places them in a broader catalog of accelerating pressure (demolitions, tax unification) called a 'silent forced transfer' by critics.
Escalating settler attacks, security strains
The wider security context is one of intensifying settler attacks and strains on Israeli security services.
Evrim Ağacı cites Israeli defence data documenting 1,720 nationalist attacks by Jews on Palestinians in the West Bank since October 7, 2023, including 845 incidents in 2025 alone that caused about 200 injuries and four deaths.
It also reports IDF commanders warning that police may need assistance because they are struggling to contain the violence.
That escalation compounds pressure on Palestinian civilians alongside demolitions and municipal measures in East Jerusalem.
Coverage Differences
Scope of violence reporting
Evrim Ağacı provides concrete incident counts and casualty figures from Israeli defence data and notes IDF commanders’ concerns about force diversion; Al Jazeera focuses more on the policy and planning aspects and cites demolitions and displacement without the same aggregation of settler attack statistics.
Expansion plans and consequences
Taken together, the sources portray the Atarot and Nahalat Shimon plans as not merely municipal projects but as elements of deliberate policy to consolidate Israeli control, displace Palestinian residents, and shape final-status realities on the ground.
Both Al Jazeera and Evrim Ağacı explicitly report analysts’ warnings that these moves would make a two-state outcome and a contiguous Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem far more difficult, and both call for urgent international legal and corporate pressure before irreversible construction begins.
The two outlets differ mainly in emphasis — Al Jazeera foregrounds Khalilieh’s legal-diplomatic focus, while Evrim Ağacı adds granular security incident data — but both sources describe the same pattern of expansion, demolition and displacement.
Coverage Differences
Overall emphasis
Al Jazeera presents the legal and diplomatic remedy framing and quotes Khalilieh’s strategic language; Evrim Ağacı supplements that with detailed security statistics and situates the moves amid broader regional volatility, giving more numerical context to attacks and demolitions.