New checkpoints and fears divide Jerusalem's Jews and Palestinians
The moves to establish the checkpoints, which would allow Israel to seal off Palestinian neighbourhoods, came amid a wave of stabbing attacks by Palestinians that has spread fear in Israel, not least Tuesday's gun and knife attack on a Jerusalem bus that killed two people.
Hours after the first roadblocks were erected, police said a 70-year-old Israeli woman had been stabbed and injured outside Jerusalem's main bus station. The attacker was shot dead as he tried to board a bus.
Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister who has so often insisted that Jerusalem is "indivisible", has found himself putting in place measures - at least temporarily - to effectively divide it.
Lorries carrying concrete blocks were visible in neighbourhoods across occupied east Jerusalem, including around Jabel Mukaber, home to one of the two Palestinians involved in Tuesday's bus attack.
The recent wave of attacks has put the city in the grip of a toxic anxiety, with parents keeping children away from school, restaurants and public places empty and residents taking a variety of precautions not seen since the height of the second intifada.
The fear is equally palpable among Palestinians, with many worried they will be viewed as a potential threat or accused of being a terrorist.
Hours after police set up checkpoints in Palestinian neighbourhoods of east Jerusalem, the interior minister, Silvan Shalom, said he was revoking the residency status of Palestinians from the city who had taken part in attacks on Jews.
Worst hit have been areas along the city's so-called "seam line", which marks the boundary between Jewish west and largely Palestinian east Jerusalem. At times in recent days they have seemed like ghost towns.
