1. General views of East Jerusalem with Israeli flag on Jewish home in foreground

2. Longshot mosque with barrier in the background on skyline

3. Zoom in on Israeli home in Silwan in East Jerusalem

4. Jewish home being built near barrier

5. Israeli security guard

6. Settlers moving into new house in East Jerusalem

7. SOUNDBITE (English) Daniel Luria, spokesman for Ateret Cohanim

"There is no question that the wall which is currently built more or less on the borders of Jerusalem, the municipality in Jerusalem definitively serves our purpose. From our point of view there is no such concept of East and West Jerusalem, there is united Jerusalem."

8. Security guard on roof of house and zoom out to barrier

9. Settlers outside house

10. Settlers inside their new house

11. SOUNDBITE (English) Daniel Luria, spokesman for Ateret Cohanim

"When there are Arabs who are ready to sell - we are not going door knocking - there are Arabs ready to sell

and like any multicultural democratic society we buy. We have bought, we claim that there are Arabs ready to sell, we simply buy."

12. Longshot of Silwan street

13. Palestinian woman walking in to her house, pan to mosque in Silwan

14. Security guard outside Jewish home in Silwan

15. SOUNDBITE (English) Jamal Zeitoun, resident of Silwan

"The people, it's not in the heart my God, my God is not in their hearts, in their hearts it is land and money and they go to the money, they go to the money."

16. Jamal walking away with his child

17. Longshot of East Jerusalem

While the world focuses on a Gaza pullout plan and ending four years of bloodshed, Jews are discreetly buying up Arab properties and strengthening their presence in a future battleground - the Palestinian areas of Jerusalem.

The Israelis - backed by three nonprofit organisations and the government - are working to rejuvenate long-dormant Jewish life in Arab-dominated areas of Jerusalem.

The more Jews move to the Arab part of Jerusalem, the more difficult it will be to divide the city - which both Israelis and Palestinians claim as their capital under a final peace deal.

Today, some 5,000 Jews live among about 200,000 Palestinians in Arab-dominated areas of Jerusalem.

Along with their biblical beliefs that they are bringing Jews home, the settlers hope their mere presence will make it

impossible to divide the city, annexed by Israel after it was captured from Jordan in the 1967 Mideast war.

The contentious West Bank barrier - being built on what Israel would like to see become the internationally recognised border of Jerusalem - is further assisting the settlers.

Daniel Luria, is the spokesman for Ateret Cohanim, one of the nonprofit groups dedicated to bringing Jews to Jerusalem's Old City and Arab neighbourhoods.

Ateret Cohanim buys properties, sometimes through Arab middlemen, offering extravagant prices and promising total protection and anonymity to the Palestinian sellers.

They renovate the buildings, usually turning them into multiunit apartments, and bring large, mostly ultra-Orthodox, families to live in them.

Jews have now more than doubled their numbers to some 800 people in the Muslim and Christian Quarters of Jerusalem's Old City in the past five years.

One Muslim Quarter Jewish homeowner is Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

In the past four years, nearly 60 percent of Ateret Cohanim's funds came from international donors, most of them in the United States, Luria said.

The settlers say they want to coexist with their Arab neighbours, but instead infuriate the Palestinian residents just by being there.

Protected by large steel gates and the barrels of several M-16s, the Jews do not even walk down the street unescorted.

Palestinians sometimes clash with their unwanted neighbours, throwing firebombs, stones and sticks.